you to the Paymaster, who, after wandering disconsolately round the Pay Office, exclaiming pathetically, "I say, hasn't anyone seen that Mixed Muster book? It must be somewhere, you know," returns you without thanks to the D.O., where they tell you to call again in three days' time. On returning you are provided with a P.I.O. and numerous necessary papers, requested to sign a few dozen forms, overwhelmed with an unexpected largesse of pay and sent forth on that twenty-eight days' leave from which no traveller returns. There's nothing in it at all; the whole thing only lasts four days. They do it by a system, I believe.

As we assembled on board for the last time, awaiting our railway warrants, there were some moving spectacles. The Mate and the Second-Engineer were bidding each other affectionate and tearful farewells behind the winch. "You won't quite forget me, Bill, will yer?" I heard the Second exclaim brokenly, but the only reply was a strangled sob. The Steward, seated on his kit-bag, was murmuring a snatch of song that asserted the rather personal fact that "our gel's a big plump lass." He is an oyster-dredger in civil life and is eagerly looking forward to experiencing once more the delicate thrills and excitement of this hazardous sport. Jones, our Signaller, who recently wrote a poem which opened with the lines,

was struggling painfully to insert a pair of boots into a recalcitrant kit-bag, and exhibited an expression of dogged determination rather than the astonishment he had predicted. The Trimmer was heard complaining mournfully that when he left the Patrol Office for the last time they never said good-bye. He seemed to feel this keenly.

All of us were more or less excited, all as it were on tip-toe with expectancy, like school-boys on breaking-up morning. All, did I say? No, there was one member of the crew who sat supremely indifferent to the prevailing atmosphere of emotion, gazing calmly before him with his solitary lacklustre eye. The Silent Menace, the ship's dog, betrayed none of our childlike sentiment. Demobilisation was nothing to him—he was too old a campaigner to let a little matter like that agitate his habitual reserve. To us the recent period of hostilities had been "The War," the only war in which we had ever been privileged to fight; but to him it was just one of the numberless affrays of an adventurous life, and, judging by the worn condition of his ears and the veteran scars that tattooed his tail, some of the previous ones had had their share of frightfulness. And to-morrow, no doubt, he will try the game again.

It was the Third Hand who suddenly propounded the unsolvable question: "Who's goin' to keep that there Menace?"

There was an almost universal chorus of "Me!" I say "almost universal" because Jones, who is R.N.V.R. and educated, probably said, "I," and the Chief Engineer was lighting his pipe and merely succeeded in blowing the match out.

"You can't all have him," said the Third Hand, "so I think I'll take him along with me. I knows a bit about dawgs."

There was instant and clamant disapproval, each one of us urging an unquestionable claim to the guardianship of the orphan Menace. The Steward said he was the only one with the ghost of a right to the dog; had it not always been the Menace's custom to help him wash up the plates and dishes? A Deck Hand, however, protested that as he had eaten one of his mittens the Silent Menace was already in part his property. The Mate and the Second-Engineer nearly came to blows about it.

The question was still unsettled when the warrants arrived. As time was short it was finally decided that whomsoever he should follow was to be adjudged his future owner. We climbed ashore and spread out fanwise, looking back and uttering those noises best calculated to incline the unyielding heart of the Menace towards us. He himself rose from the deck and strolled on to the wharf, where he stood coolly regarding us. Without emotion his Cyclopean orb directed its gaze from one to another till, midway between the Third Hand and the Second-Engineer, it was observed to irradiate a sudden and unaccustomed luminosity.

"Come along then, Menace," wheedled the Second.

"Yoicks, old dawg!" exclaimed the Third Hand, patting his knee encouragingly.

But they had misinterpreted their Menace, for in the middle distance, on a pile of timber directly behind the expectant twain, had appeared the sleek person of a sandy cat which proved to be the attraction. For an instant the Menace stood motionless, his spine bristling and his tail growing stiff; then with a short sharp bark he sprang forward like an arrow from a bow in the direction of the feline objective. We saw a streak of yellow as she fled for safety and life; a cloud of dust, and the Menace and his quarry disappeared from view. Faintly from afar floated an eager yelp, telling that the chase was still in full cry.

"Well, sink me," said the Second-Engineer, "that settles it."

There were trains to be caught, and so, slowly and sadly, we turned away.

Thus did the Silent Menace, with the rest of his shipmates, bid good-bye to the Auxiliary Patrol.

A HOME FROM HOME.

PRESIDENT WILSON (quitting America in his Fourteen-League-of-Nations Boots). "IT'S TIME I WAS GETTING BACK TO A HEMISPHERE WHERE I REALLY AM APPRECIATED."

THE ROAD TO THE RHINE.

A LITTLE LOOT.

It was at the time when men still imagined that to be a pivotal man in some way enhanced their chances of being demobilised that an abnormal wave of acquisitiveness passed over us. Before it passed, I regret to say, it hovered, chiefly on account of the prospect of a speedy return home and the desire to take back some kind of trophy to satisfy the still small voice of inquiry concerning papa and the Great War.

The very first day after we had arrived in the most unimportant village imaginable (our usual luck), Roley, the fattest subaltern on record, lurched into the room and told us of the discovery of a wonderful trainload of abandoned Bosch material, Being a Regular soldier, acquisitiveness runs through his whole being, of course, and he gave us a most glowing account of the wonders to be found. "Full of things," he cried, "coal, Bosch beds, field-guns and souvenirs—hundreds of 'em."

I know no rabbit that could have pricked up his ears quicker than did the pivotal men at the sound of that magic word. "Hail, Roley!" we cried; "we who are about to be demobilised salute you!"

That evening a select conclave of super-scroungers met with great solemnity. Beds for the men and coal for all—certainly, and then we would start collecting. By the morrow each man slept in luxury, while subalterns from other companies came in to warm themselves by our roaring fires. Not till then did we feel justified in turning our thoughts to the furnishing of the baronial hall at home.

Some day, we pivotal men are still ready to believe, when demobilisation is nearly complete we shall return to our bowler hats and civic respectability, but meantime, let me tell you, respectable elderly subalterns enjoy things like clambering over a forbidden Bosch train in search of loot. When we had climbed to the end of the trucks and were thoroughly dirty, we found we had done very badly. The souvenirs were there all right, but no matter how interesting and desirable it may be, you simply cannot pack up a field-gun and send it home—the tail part does stick out so.