pened to mention to a bootmaker at
Durrington that my left heel had become jarred with walking. He
recommended me to try rubber heels to lessen the strain, and he put them
on for me. I had never worn them before, and found them very
uncomfortable when I was walking along the marshes. They seemed to hold
and stick in the wet ground."

"And now there are one or two other points I want you to make clear. Why
did you register in the name of James Ronald at the Durrington Hotel?"

"That was merely a whim. I was disgusted with London and society after
my return from the front. Those who have been through this terrible war
learn to see most things at their true worth, and the frivolity, the
snobbishness, and the shams of London society at such a time sickened
and disgusted me. They tried to lionise me in drawing rooms and make me
talk for their entertainment. They put my photograph in the illustrated
papers, and interviewed me, and all that kind of thing. What had I done!
Nothing! Not a tithe of what thousands of better men are doing every day
out there. So I went away from it all. I had no intention, when I went
into the hotel, of not registering in my full name though. That came
about in a peculiar way. It was the first registration form I had
seen--it was the first hotel I had stayed at after nearly eighteen
months at the front--and I put down my two christian names, James
Ronald, in the wrong space, the space for the surname, which is the
first column. I saw my error as I glanced over the form, but the girl,
thinking I had filled it up, took it away from me. It then struck me
that it was just as well to let it go; it would prevent my being worried
by fools."

"And how came it that you ran so short of money that you had to leave
the hotel?"

"I have practically nothing except what my father allows me, and which
is paid quarterly through his bankers in London. I left London with a
few pounds in my pocket, and thought no more about money until the hotel
proprietor stopped me one morning and asked me politely to discharge my
bill, as I was a stranger to him. It was then that I first realised the
difference between a name like Penreath of Twelvetrees and plain James
Ronald. I was furious, and told him he should have the money in two
days, as soon as I could communicate with my London bankers. I wrote
straight away, and asked them to send me some money. The money came, the
morning I was turned out of the hotel; I saw the let