job was to save the Empire by cleaning harness
on the East Coast of England--for under advice he had transferred to
the artillery. Later, when his true qualifications were discovered,
he had to save the Empire by polishing the buttons and serving the
morning tea and buying the cigarettes of a major who in 1914 had been
a lawyer by profession and a soldier only for fun. The major talked
too much, and to the wrong people. He became lyric concerning the
talents of Braiding to a dandiacal Divisional General at Colchester,
and soon, by the actuating of mysterious forces and the filling up of
many Army forms, Braiding was removed to Colchester, and had to save
the Empire by valeting the Divisonal General. Foiled in one direction,
Braiding advanced in another. By tradition, when a valet marries a
lady's maid, the effect on the birth-rate is naught. And it is certain
that but for the war Braiding would not have permitted himself to act
as he did. The Empire, however, needed citizens. The first rumour that
Braiding had done what in him lay to meet the need spread through
the kitchens of the Albany like a new gospel, incredible and
stupefying--but which imposed itself. The Albany was never the same
again.

All the kitchens were agreed that Mr. Hoape would soon be stranded.
The spectacle of Mrs. Braiding as she slipped out of a morning past
the porter's lodge mesmerised beholders. At last, when things had
reached the limit, Mrs. Braiding slipped out and did not come back.
Meanwhile a much younger sister of hers had been introduced into the
flat. But when Mrs. Braiding went the virgin went also. The flat was
more or less closed, and Mr. Hoape had slept at his club for weeks.
At length the flat was reopened, but whereas three had left it, four
returned.

That a bachelor of Mr. Hoape's fastidiousness should tolerate in his
home a woman with a tiny baby was remarkable; it was as astounding
perhaps as any phenomenon of the war, and a sublime proof that Mr.
Hoape realised that the Empire was fighting for its life. It arose
from the fact that both G.J. and Braiding were men of considerable
sagacity. Braiding had issued an order, after seeing G.J., that his
wife should not leave G.J.'s service. And Mrs. Braiding, too, had her
sense of duty. She was very proud of G.J.'s war-work, and would
have thought it disloyal to leave him in the lurch, and so possibly
prejudice the war-work--especially as she was convinced that he would
never get