Two months went by, during which the O. i/c Records made no further
additions to our postbag. There are mornings when your friends appear
to have forgotten you, when a Levitical postman bangs your neighbour's
gate mockingly and forthwith crosses the street. On such mornings
our thoughts may have turned to Records with a certain yearning; but
mainly we felt his care like the air about us, and had no need that it
should materialise in idle correspondence.

At last my term of probation came to an end. In response to a
note from Records (with form for receipt) I returned my Transfer
Certificate and received in its place my final Discharge Papers--with
a form for receipt. At the same time I heard that the Commissioners
were in earnest consultation as to the continuance of my pension.

Thus goodness and loving-kindness have followed me ever since I handed
in the uniform. To this day I am the subject of anxious consideration.
Not a week ago the early post brought me my character. Imagine the
incessant parental watchfulness of an authority which can testify
concerning one two hundred and fifty thousandth of its charge that
he is "a good soldier, willing and industrious, honest, sober,
trustworthy and well-conducted." Think of the kindly interest which
prompted the O. i/c Records to insert a form of receipt--"to guard
against impersonation." My character might have got into base hands;
some unworthy person might have gone about professing to possess that
willingness, that industry, that sobriety, that trustworthiness and
that elegance of conduct which are mine alone; but the form of receipt
would baffle him. I cannot explain how, but Records knows.

What is yet in store for me the future bides; but this I know: while
England endures and Records continues to record, I shall not walk