disposed that it shall not open. Thoughts of home are gone; I can
think of nothing but Him. When at last I have obtained his gracious,
if reluctant, consent to my obeying the instructions I have, and have
got on to the boat, I deposit my goods hurriedly, anywhere, and fight
for a position by the bulwark nearest the quay, from which I may gaze
at his august Excellency for the few remaining hours during which it
is given us to linger in or near our well-beloved France.

How came it about, I ask myself, that the Right Man got to be in
the Right Place? It cannot have been merely fortuitous that he was
not thrust away into some such obscure job as the command of an
Expeditionary Force or the control of the counsels of the Imperial
General Staff. It must have been the deliberate choice of a wise
chooser; Major-General Military Landing himself, the SECRETARY OF
STATE FOR WAR on his own, even His MAJESTY in person? Or was a
plebiscite taken through the length and breadth of the British Isles
when I was elsewhere, and did Britain, thrilled to the core, clamour
for him unanimously?

I watch him keep a perturbed and restless Major from the line waiting
while he finishes his light-hearted badinage with a subordinate. It is
altogether magnificent in its sheer _sangfroid_. Why is it that such
a one is labelled merely A.M.L.O., when he should obviously be the
M.L.O.? He has his subordinate, happily insignificant and obsequiously
proud to serve. Let the subordinate be the a.m.l.o., and let It,
Itself, be openly acknowledged to be It, Itself.

By the way, where _is_ his M.L.O.? Has anybody ever seen him? I
haven't. Does he exist?... Has he been got rid of?