m into the mellow autumn sunshine. Found
himself standing in front of Chipmunk, who still smoked the pipe of
elegant leisure by the door of the garage.

"This is a dam good old world all the same. Isn't it?" said he.

"If it was always like this, it would have its points," replied the
unworried Chipmunk.

Doggie had an inspiration. He looked at his watch. It was nearly one
o'clock.

"Hungry?"

"Always 'ungry. Specially about dinner-time."

"Come along of me to the Downshire Arms and have a bite of dinner."

Chipmunk rose slowly to his feet, and put his pipe into his tunic
pocket, and jerked a slow thumb backwards.

"Ain't yer having yer meals 'ere?"

"Only now and then, as sort of treats," said Doggie. "Come along."

"Ker-ist!" said Chipmunk. "Can yer wait a bit until I've cleaned me
buttons?"

"Oh, bust your old buttons!" laughed Doggie. "I'm hungry."

So the pair of privates marched through the old city to the Downshire
Arms, the select, old-world hotel of Durdlebury, where Doggie was
known since babyhood; and there, sitting at a window table with
Chipmunk, he gave Durdlebury the great sensation of its life. If the
Dean himself, clad in tights and spangles, had juggled for pence by
the west door of the cathedral, tongues could scarcely have wagged
faster. But Doggie worried his head about gossip not one jot. He was
in joyous mood and ordered a gargantuan feast for Chipmunk and bottles
of the strongest old Burgundy, such as he thought would get a grip on
Chipmunk's whiskyfied throat; and under the genial influence of food
and drink, Chipmunk told him tales of far lands and strange
adventures; and when they emerged much later into the quiet streets,
it was the great good fortune of Chipmunk's life that there was not
the ghost of an Assistant Provost-Marshal in Durdlebury.

"Doggie, old man," said Oliver afterwards, "my wonder and reverence
for you increases hour by hour. You are the only man in the whole
world who has ever made Chipmunk drunk."

"You see," said Doggie modestly, "I don't think he ever really loved
anyone who fed him before."

CHAPTER XXII

Doggie, the lightest-hearted private in the British Army, danced, in a
metaphorical sense, back to London, where he stayed for the rest of
his leave at his rooms in Woburn Place; took his wholesome fill of
theatres and music-halls, going to those parts of the house where
Tommies congregate; and bought an old Crown Derby dinner service as a