duty he had not managed to find his way to America for an hour or two,
if only to complicate my business with the dollar question...

I read the whole Form again, from start to finish, including the bit
about vouchers being required for any unusual expenditure, such as
cab-fares of over ten shillings. I then told George to write down on
a piece of paper how much money he had when he started on his silly
journey, and how much he had in hand when he got back; to deduct the
latter from the former and tell me the result; to go away, leave me
to wrestle all night with the problem, come back next morning at
nine, remain motionless and strictly in one country in the meanwhile,
neither accommodated nor subsisting. He gave me the figure, 173
francs, and never mentioned the subject to me again for days owing to
the sullen fury he noted in my expression every time he cleared his
throat to do so.

After ten days I handed George a chit from the Pay People for "one
hundred and seventy francs for travelling expenses, 30/10/1917 to
20/11/1917, for tour of duty to Italy." George said I had a dashed
fine brain to have worked out the claim; I told him the Pay Man had a
dashed kind heart to settle it. I hadn't been able to avoid mentioning
Italy; but for the rest the Pay Man simply must have thought that
George had driven all the way to the frontier and back in cabs and
done precious little duty on the other side of it. Wouldn't you
have thought so, Charles, if you had received a claim merely for
eighty-five cabs, at two francs a time, and all in France, too?

Yours ever,

HENRY.