of London, a fact which his mind was
too confusedly occupied to appreciate. Once more was he beset less by
the perplexities of the future than by a sense of certain impending
doom. For to Phineas McPhail's "Why not?" he had been able to give no
answer. He could give no answer now, as he marched with swinging step,
automatically, down Oxford Street and the Bayswater Road in the
direction of Kensington Gardens. He could give no answer as he stood
sightlessly staring at the Peter Pan statue.

A one-armed man in a khaki cap and hospital blue came and stood by his
side and looked in a pleased yet puzzled way at the exquisite poem in
marble. At last he spoke--in a rich Irish accent.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but could you be telling me the meaning of
it, at all?"

Doggie awoke and smiled.

"Do you like it?"

"I do," said the soldier.

"It is about Peter Pan. A kind of Fairy Tale. You can see the 'little
people' peeping out--I think you call them so in Ireland."

"We do that," said the soldier.

So Doggie sketched the outline of the immortal story of the Boy Who
Will Never Grow Old, and the Irishman listened with deep interest.

"Indeed," said he after a time, "it is good to come back to the true
things after the things out there." He waved his one arm in the vague
direction of the war.

"Why do you call them true things?" Doggie asked quickly.

They turned away, and Doggie found himself sitting on a bench by the
man's side.

"It's not me that can tell you that," said he, "and my wife and
children in Galway."

"Were you there at the outbreak of war?"

He was. A reservist called back to the colours after some years of
retirement from the army. He had served in India and South Africa, a
hard-bitten soldier, proud of the traditions of his old regiment.
There were scarcely any of them left--and that was all that was left
of him. He smiled cheerily. Doggie condoled with him on the loss of
his arm.

"Ah sure," he replied, "and it might keep me out of a fight when I go
into Ballinasloe."

"Who would you want to fight?" asked Doggie.

"The dirty Sinn Feiners that do be always shouting 'Freedom for
Ireland and to hell with freedom for the rest of the world.' If I
haven't lost my arm in a glorious cause, what have I lost it for? Can
you tell me that?"

Doggie agreed that he had fought for the greater freedom of humanity
and gave him a cigarette, and they went on talking. The Irishman had
been in the retreat fro