done for me?"--moments when I envied the hotel night-porters,
taxi-drivers, and red-nosed old women selling flowers in Piccadilly
Circus who had something more sensible to do than to bother their heads
about trying to be patriotic, and getting snubbed for their pains. Yet,
with characteristic infatuation for hopeless ventures, I persevered.
Another "whack" at the F.O. leading to another holograph, two more
whacks at the Censorship, interpreter jobs, hospital jobs, God knows
what--I persevered, and might for the next three years have been kicking
my heels, like any other patriot, in the corridor of some dingy
Government office at the mercy of a pack of tuppenny counter-jumpers,
but for a God-sent little accident, the result of sheer boredom, which
counselled a trip to the sunny Mediterranean.

Fortune was nearer to me, at that supreme moment, than she had ever yet
been. For on the day prior to my departure I received a communication
from the Board of Trade Labour, etc., etc., whose methods of work, it
was now apparent, were as expeditious as its own name was brief. That
hopeful Mr. R----, that bubbling young optimist who had so
conscientiously written down a number of my qualifications, such as they
were--he was keeping his promise after months, and months, and months.
Never say die. The dear little fellow! What job had he captured for me?

An offer to work in a factory at Gretna Green, wages to commence at 17s.
6d. per week.

H'm.

The remuneration was not on a princely scale, but I like to think that
it included the free use of the lavatory, if there happened to be one on
the premises.