Army Form, "care should be taken to comply with the instructions
contained in the King's Regulations. We have a quarter of an hour
before your breakfast will be ready. Let us deal with our more
formidable enemies, the Pay People, first."

George is the sort of person who gets you into trouble on the very
first line of any Army Form. Asked as to his rank, he told me he was a
Second Lieutenant in the Army, temporary Lieutenant, acting Captain.
All these ranks get a different rate of allowance. Which of the three
was George in fact?

"A man of your age ought to know better," I said.

We were half-an-hour late for breakfast, and even so George hadn't got
to the station of departure, as far as A.F.O. 1771 was concerned.

I determined to devote the morning to the matter, clearing the court
for the purpose. Our Mr. Booth, however, who is intolerably precise
and accurate in these matters, had profited by my absence at breakfast
to collect a folio of relevant Orders and Instructions, numbered one
to seventy-three consecutively.

It all sounds so simple, doesn't it? You get so many francs a day for
subsistence, and so many francs a night for accommodation, in France;
so many lire a day for subsistence, and so many lire a night for
accommodation, in Italy. Ah yes, but you don't know George when he is
in action. Not content with travelling in the dark, and so subsisting
by night when he ought to be accommodated, and being accommodated by
day when he ought to be subsisting, he could never make up his mind
to stay in the same country for two days together. As to his constant