the hidden glory.

Yours very lovingly,
Con.



XLV


February 3rd, 1917.

Dear Misses W.:

You were very kind to remember me at Christmas. _Seventeen_ was read
with all kinds of gusto by all my brother officers. It's still being
borrowed.

I've been back from leave a few days now and am settling back to
business again. It was a trifle hard after over-eating and undersleeping
myself for nine days, and riding everywhere with my feet up in taxis. I
was the wildest little boy. Here it's snowy and bitter. We wear scarves
round our ears to keep the frost away and dream of fires a mile high.
All I ask, when the war is ended, is to be allowed to sit asleep in a
big armchair and to be left there absolutely quiet. Sleep, which we
crave so much at times, is only death done up in sample bottles. Perhaps
some of these very weary men who strew our battlefields are glad to lie
at last at endless leisure.

Good-bye, and thank you.