hen our time is limited. Will you kindly
tell the committee as briefly as possible just what your claim is?"

And the nurse replied, with medals shaking:

"I'm claiming, as I've said before, two weeks' salary in loo of
notice, and my fare home from France; twenty-five francs salary and
ninety-five francs expenses. And I sy nothing of excess luggage."

"But you didn't _come_ home."

"I have come home, though."

One of those members whose destiny it is always to put a committee in
the wrong remarked:

"But surely, Nurse, you left our employ nearly a year ago. Why didn't
you claim before?"

"I've been at you for two months at least, and I was ill for six
months in Turin; they had to put me off the train there," said Nurse
Smaith, getting self-confidence.

"As I understand," said G.J. "You left us in order to join a
Serbian unit of another society, and you only returned to England in
February."

"I didn't leave you, sir. That is, I mean, I left you, but I was told
to go."

"Who told you to go?"

"Matron."

Sir Stephen benevolently put in:

"But the matron had always informed us that it was you who said you
wouldn't stay another minute. We have it in the correspondence."

"That's what _she_ says. But I say different. And I can prove it."

Said G.J.:

"There must be some misunderstanding. We have every confidence in the
matron, and she's still with us."

"Then I'm sorry for you."

He turned warily to another aspect of the subject.

"Do I gather that you went straight from Paris to Serbia?"

"Yes. The unit was passing through, and I joined it."

"But how did you obtain your passport? You had no certificate from
us?"

Nurse Smaith tossed her perilous red hair.

"Oh! No difficulty about that. I am not _without_ friends, as you may
say." Some of the committee looked up suspiciously, aware that the
matron had in her report hinted at mysterious relations between Nurse
Smaith and certain authorities. "The doctor in charge of the Serbian
unit was only too glad to have me. Of course, if you're going to
believe everything matron says--" Her tone was becoming coarser,
but the committee could neither turn her out nor cure her natural
coarseness, nor indicate to her that she was not using the demeanour
of committee-rooms. She was firmly lodged among them, and she went
from bad to worse. "Of course, if you're going to swallow everything
matron says--! It isn't as if I was the only one."

"May I ask if you