," said he, "if the War Office went mad
and sank on its knees and beat its head in the dust before me."

"In Heaven's name, why not?"

"I've learned my place in the world," said Doggie.

Peggy shook him by the shoulder and turned on him her young eager
face.

"Your place in the world is that of a cultivated gentleman of old
family, Marmaduke Trevor of Denby Hall."

"That was the funny old world," said he, "that stood on its legs--legs
wide apart with its hands beneath the tails of its dress-coat, in
front of the drawing-room fire. The present world's standing on its
head. Everything's upside-down. It has no sort of use for Marmaduke
Trevor of Denby Hall. No more use than for Goliath. By the way, how is
the poor little beast getting on?"

Peggy laughed. "Oh, Goliath is perfectly assured of his position. He
has got it rammed into his mind that he drives the two-seater." She
returned to the attack. "Do you intend always to remain a private?"

"I do," said he. "Not even a corporal. You see, I've learned to be a
private of sorts, and that satisfies my ambition."

"Well, I give it up," said Peggy. "Though why you wouldn't let dad get
you a nice cushy job is a thing I can't understand. For the life of me
I can't."

"I've made my bed, and I must lie on it," he said quietly.

"I don't believe you've got such a thing as a bed."

Doggie smiled. "Oh yes, a bed of a sort." Then noting her puzzled
face, he said consolingly: "It'll all come right when the war's over."

"But when will that be? And who knows, my dear man, what may happen to
you?"

"If I'm knocked out, I'm knocked out, and there's an end of it,"
replied Doggie philosophically.

She put her hand on his. "But what's to become of me?"

"We needn't cry over my corpse yet," said Doggie.

The Dean, after awhile, returned with his bottle of medicine, which he
displayed with conscientious ostentation. They dined. Peggy again went
over the ground of the possible commission.

"I'm afraid she has set her heart on it, my boy," said the Dean.

Peggy cried a little on parting. This time Doggie was going, not to
the fringe, but to the heart of the Great Adventure. Into the thick of
the carnage. A year ago, she said, through her tears, she would have
thought herself much more fitted for it than Marmaduke.

"Perhaps you are still, dear," said Doggie, with his patient smile.

He saw them to the taxi which was to take them to the familiar
Sturrocks's. Before gettin