attention to the officer's infirmity. It was then that the officer
lost his temper. I saw him flush.

"I don't want it," he said sharply. "There's nothing the matter with
me. Thanks all the same. I'll stand."

This habit of being self-forgetful gives one time to be remindful of
others. Last January, during a brief and glorious ten days' leave, I
went to a matinee at the Coliseum. Vesta Tilley was doing an
extraordinarily funny impersonation of a Tommy just home from the
comfort of the trenches; her sketch depicted the terrible discomforts
of a fighting man on leave in Blighty. If I remember rightly the
refrain of her song ran somewhat in this fashion:

"Next time they want to give me six days' leave
Let 'em make it six months' 'ard."

There were two officers, a major and a captain, behind us; judging by
the sounds they made, they were getting their full money's worth of
enjoyment. In the interval, when the lights went up, I turned and saw
the captain putting a cigarette between the major's lips; then, having
gripped a match-box between his knees so that he might strike the
match, he lit the cigarette for his friend very awkwardly. I looked
closer and discovered that the laughing captain had only one hand and
the equally happy major had none at all.

Men forget their own infirmities in their endeavour to help each
other. Before the war we had a phrase which has taken on a new meaning
now; we used to talk about "lending a hand." To-day we lend not only
hands, but arms and eyes and legs. The wonderful comradeship learnt in