"I don't think," observed Wagstaffe, since Kemp had apparently
concluded his philippic, "that young girls are the only people who
lose their heads. Consider all the poisonous young blighters that one
sees about town just now. Their uplift is enormous, and their manners
in public horrid; and they hardly know enough about their new job to
stand at attention when they hear 'God Save the King.' In fact, they
deserve to be nursed by your little friends, Bobby!"

"They are all that you say," conceded Kemp. "But after all, they do
have a fairly stiff time of it on duty, and they are going to have a
much stiffer time later on. And they are not going to back out when
the romance of the new uniform wears off, remember. Now these girls
will play the angel-of-mercy game for a week or two, and then jack up
and confine their efforts to getting hold of a wounded officer and
taking him to the theatre. It is _dernier cri_ to take a wounded
officer about with you at present. Wounded officers have quite
superseded Pekinese, I am told."

"Women certainly are the most extraordinary creatures," mused Ayling,
a platoon commander of "B." "In private life I am a beak at a public
school--"

"What school?" inquired several voices. Ayling gave the name, found
that there were two of the school's old boys present, and continued--

"Just as I was leaving to join this battalion, the Head received
a letter from a boy's mother intimating that she was obliged to
withdraw her son, as he had received a commission in the army for the
duration of the war. She wanted to know if the Head would keep her