r his
name and style were 35792 Private Trevor, J. M., but his voice and
phrase were those of her own social class. Then she smiled, and told
him. The corner of fairyland was a private auxiliary hospital in a
Lancashire seaside town.

"Lancashire," said Doggie, knitting his brow in a puzzled way, "but
why have they sent me to Lancashire? I belong to a West Country
regiment, and all my friends are in the South."

"What's he grousing about, Sister?" suddenly asked the occupant of the
next bed. "He's the sort of chap that doesn't know when he's in luck
and when he isn't. I'm in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, I am,
and when I was hit before, they sent me to a military hospital in
Inverness. That'd teach you, my lad. This for me every time. You ought
to have something to grouse at."

"I'm not grousing, you idiot!" said Doggie.

"'Ere--who's he calling an idjit?" cried the Duke of Cornwall's Light
Infantryman, raising himself on his elbow.

The nurse intervened; explained that no one could be said to grumble
at a hospital when he called it fairyland. Trevor's question was that
of one in search of information. He did not realize that in assigning
men to the various hospitals in the United Kingdom, the authorities
could not possibly take into account an individual man's local
association.

"Oh well, if it's only his blooming ignorance----"

"That's just it, mate," smiled Doggie, "my blooming ignorance."

"That's all right," said the nurse. "Now you're friends."

"He had no right to call me an idjit," said the Duke of Cornwall's
Light Infantryman. He was an aggressive, red-visaged man with bristly
black hair and stubbly black moustache.

"If you'll agree that he wasn't grousing, Penworthy, I'm sure Trevor
will apologize for calling you an idiot."

And into the nurse's eyes crept the queer smile of the woman learned
in the ways of children.

"Didn't I say he wasn't grousing? It was only his ignorance?"

Doggie responded. "I meant no offence, mate, in what I said."

The other growled an acceptance, whereupon the nurse smiled an ironic
benediction and moved away.

"Where did you get it?" asked Penworthy.

Doggie gave the information and, in his turn, made the polite
counter-inquiry.

Penworthy's bit of shrapnel, which had broken a rib or two, had been
acquired just north of Albert. When he left, he said, we were putting
it over in great quantities.

"That's where the great push is going to be in a fe