everything save that he was the
least important thing on God's earth struggling desperately for animal
existence.

Yet there were rare times of relief from stress, when he could
gropingly string together the facts of a pre-Somme existence. And then
he would curse Phineas lustily for losing the precious letter.

"Man," Phineas once replied, "don't you see that you're breaking a
heart which, in spite of its apparent rugosity and callosity, is as
tender as a new-made mother's? Tell me to do it, and I'll desert and
make my way to Paris and----"

"And the military police will see that you make your way to hell via a
stone wall. And serve you right. Don't be a blithering fool," said
Doggie.

"Then I don't know what I can do for you, laddie, except die of
remorse at your feet."

"We're all going to die of rheumatic fever," said Doggie, shivering in
his sodden uniform. "Blast this rain!"

Phineas thrust his hand beneath his clothing and produced a long,
amorphous and repulsive substance, like a painted tallow candle
overcome by intense heat, from which he gravely bit an inch or two.

"What's that?" asked Doggie.

"It's a stick of peppermint," said Phineas. "I've still an aunt in
Galashiels who remembers my existence."

Doggie stuck out his hand like a monkey in the Zoo.

"You selfish beast!" he said.

CHAPTER XXIII

The fighting went on and, to Doggie, the inhabitants of the outside
world became almost as phantasmagorical as Phineas's providential aunt
in Galashiels. Immediate existence held him. In an historic battle Mo
Shendish fell with a machine bullet through his heart. Doggie,
staggering with the rest of the company to the attack over the muddy,
shell-torn ground, saw him go down a few yards away. It was not till
later that he knew he had gone West with many other great souls.
Doggie and Phineas mourned for him as a brother. Without him France
was a muddier and a bloodier place and the outside world more unreal
than ever.

Then to Doggie came a heart-broken letter from the Dean. Oliver had
gone the same road as Mo. Peggy was frantic with grief. Vividly Doggie
saw the peaceful deanery on which all the calamity of all the war had
crashed with sudden violence.

"Why I should thank God we parted as friends, I don't quite know,"
said Doggie, "but I do."

"I suppose, laddie," said Phineas, "it's good to feel that smiling
eyes and hearty hands will greet us when we too pass over the Border.
My God,