which express the things that he wants to convey. Add to this that English
is to me, if not a foreign, at any rate, a secondary language--I have
thought all my life in French, so that to express myself clearly on any
except the humdrum affairs of life is always a conscious effort. Even this
little prelude, in my best style, has taken me nearly two cigarettes to
write; so I gave up an impossible task.

But I thought to myself that perhaps you might have the time or the
interest to put into shape a whole mass of raw material which I have slung
together--from memory (I have a good one), and from my diary. It may seem
odd that a homeless Bohemian like myself should have kept a diary; but
I was born methodical. I believe my mastery of Army Forms gained me my
promotion! Anyhow you will find in it a pretty complete history of my
career up to date. "I have cut out the war----"

Is there a _lusus naturae_ of any nationality but English, who
rising from Private to Brigadier-General, could write six hundred and
seventy-three sprawling foolscap pages purporting to contain the story
of his life from eighteen-eighty something to June nineteen hundred and
nineteen and deliberately omit, as if it were neither here nor there, its
four and a half years' glorious and astounding episode?

"_I have cut out the war!_"

On looking through the MS. I found that he had cut out the war, in so far
as his military experiences were concerned. In khaki he showed himself to
be as English and John Bull as you please; and how the deuce his meteoric
promotion occurred and what various splendid services compelled the
exhibition on his breast of a rainbow row of ribbons, are matters known
only to the War Office, Andrew Lackaday and his Maker. Well--that is