. That's what makes me so interesting to
them."

"Where is it, anyway?" Ginger snapped out.

"In the knee, of course."

"In the knee! Well, if it's in the knee mine must be full of holes too.
I've got everything you can have in the knee, I tell you. Everything."

"Have they written anything about you in the papers?" Six-foot-two
asked. "No. Ah," he went on triumphantly, "they have about me. There's a
medical paper with a piece in it all about my patella. I sent it home
and they've framed it. It's the most astonishing thing in surgery that
I should be able to be walking about at all."

"That's what they tell _me_," Ginger replied. "But, anyhow, your bullets
are all out. I've got another one yet, and by the time that's out I dare
say I shall have had twenty operations and a whole column in the papers.
But as for articles in papers, they're nothing. Have you got your X-ray
photograph?"

"No," Six-foot-two admitted.

"They gave me mine," said Ginger. "I sent it home. It's over the
mantelpiece, my mother says. People come from miles to look at it. It's
a pity you didn't get yours. That was foolish of you, if I may say so.
Well, so long. I'm having tea to-day with one of our grand lady visitors
in Rutland Gate. If you don't see me here when you come again, the
chances are I shall be having my next operation. So long!"

"So long!" said Six-foot-two.

Ginger on his crutches moved away.

"Extraordinary," Six-foot-two murmured, either to me or to himself or to
the Park at large, "how some blokes always want to be the most important
things in the world."

A First Communion in the War Zone

Everyone who has made a stay in Paris or in any French town, and has
been at all observant, must have noticed, either singly or in little
groups, that prettiest of the flora and fauna of Roman Catholic
countries, a "first communicant" in her radiant and spotless
attire--from white shoes to white veil, and crown of innocence over all.
One sees them usually after the ceremony, soberly marching through the
streets, or flitting from this friend to that like runaway lilies.
Prinking and preening a little in the shop windows, too; and no wonder,
for it is something to be thus clad and thus important; and never will
such clothes be worn by these wearers again. Meanwhile the younger
children envy, and little attendant bodies of proud relations somewhere
in the vicinity admire and exult.

If I write as if all "first communicants"