my pass-book) in such competent hands as theirs. But as the correspondence
went on their enthusiasm wore off; Mr. Box gave vent to observations
reflecting ill on the Army system of pay, on the Army itself, even on that
part of it which was me. Had it not been that the pride of Box and Co. was
involved, I believe they would have gone to London in a body, there to form
a lifelong friendship with COX AND CO., out of pure fellow-feeling. But I
have hinted that Box and Co. were a cold inhuman institution, whose
business in life it was to do people down, or go down itself. And so COX
AND CO. had to be for it. Eventually, in the late winter of 1919, Box and
Co. extracted from COX AND CO. the admission that a five had been mistaken
for a three, and I had been done out of twopence, an affair all the more
gross in that it had happened as long ago as the early spring of 1915, and
never a word of remorse meanwhile! A conclusion by which neither Box nor
COX was really satisfied, but which, for me, was enough. We English may
only win one battle in a war, but that battle is the last.

Possibly, my dear Charles, you have a soft spot in your heart for this COX
AND CO., never failing in courtesy and attention and ever heaped with
abuse? So, to be frank, have I. Let us turn round and blackguard the other
fellow. The sequel is incredible.

I next handed my Box and Co. pass-book to COX AND CO., giving them a brief
and touching _résumé_ of my sad story of wrong and oppression, and bidding
them do their damnedest in their turn. They wrote to Box and Co.: "Our
customer, your customer, we may say THE customer, Second-Lieutenant,
Brevet-Lieutenant, Temporary Captain, Acting Major, Local Colonel, Aspiring
General (entered in your books as plain Mister) Henry Neplusultra, informs
us that, though he has banked with you since the first sovereign he earned
at his baptism, he has been so frowned at and scorned as to have been
rendered morally unable to handle his current balance. He instructs us...."