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part of the leg at the lower end. She would have had to sacrifice a certain amount of elegance to utility, but, as it is, she has done that in some cases, though Bailey won't admit it. I don't suggest that my puttees would look neat if I were to wear my legs the wrong way up, but I do think that the puttees would stand more chance of staying up and that the bulgy parts would be more useful for carrying my lunch, gloves and cigarettes.

The Expert told me that I ought to turn the things over like a bandage. I've been practising it and have discovered why so many military men marry hospital nurses. Up to date my record is two-and-a-half twists before I drop the coiled-up end. I've missed the last three Sunday parades owing to puttee troubles. I got up extra early last Sunday and had ten goes before I lost my train.

I've consulted the Sergeant-major, and he says if I don't care to wear my puttees round my ankles like the other men I must stay off parade. I've tried to get permission to wear a pair of pants painted with a spiral dado or frieze to look like puttees, but this has been ruled out of order. However, there's a rumour that the Adjutant's wife is going to start puttee classes, so all may yet be well.

For some weeks I had been feeling anxious about Peters. A man of sanguine temperament, he had, though unmarried, always preserved till a short time ago a singularly cheerful outlook on existence. But about the beginning of the year a change came over him. He grew silent and preoccupied. Frequently he travelled down from Town with the rest of us without so much as opening his mouth, he who had been the life and soul of the 5.30. His cheeks, too, lost their rosy colour, and his clothes began to look as if they had been made for somebody else.

The climax came when I saw him one evening, in a fit of deeper abstraction than usual, attempt to enter the guard's van at Liverpool Street in mistake for his own compartment. The guard took him gently by the arm and led him to where I was seated, as it chanced, alone.

"This is your carriage, Sir."

Peters woke from his reverie. "Ah, yes, of course," he said, "my mistake. Very good of you, I'm sure;" and taking a sovereign from his pocket he pressed it into the guard's hand. The latter started, but, regaining in an instant the admirable self-possession which characterises the more responsible of our railway officials, reverently touched his hat and walked away.

The incident shocked me; obviously there was something very wrong with Peters. As soon as we were clear of the station I asked him point blank what was the matter. He turned a dull eye upon me and for a moment or two made no reply. Then he said in a strained voice, "Come round to my house to-night and I will tell you." We finished the journey in silence.

"I'm glad you have come," said Peters at 9.30. "I couldn't have gone on much longer without speaking to someone about it." As he leaned forwards over the fire I noticed with pain the pallor of his face and the nervous twitching of his hands.

"When the War broke out," he went on after a short pause, "I tried to join the army, but they ploughed me in the sight test, though I read the card without a hitch."

"But that's absurd!" I exclaimed.

He smiled sadly. It was just bad luck. Carruthers had passed very successfully in the morning, and as I knew he could see through a brick wall I had asked him to memorise the letters for me. Unfortunately they changed the target in the afternoon. It was a low thing to do, but, at any rate, it settled me. Somehow or other, though, I couldn't get back again into the old groove. I wanted to be actually doing something, you understand. I didn't care what it was so long as it was something. Finally I wrote and consulted my brother-in-law, who is a parson in Bradford. He sent me back by return two pounds of grey wool, four bone needles and a book called The Knitter's Companion."

He stopped and gazed moodily into the fire for a few seconds. "How I cursed that book! Mind you, I don't blame my brother-in-law. He has spent the whole of his life in a town where the inhabitants breathe wool from the cradle and are inured to knitting of the most intricate designs. Probably he never realised the danger to which he was exposing me. He wrote: 'Try pattern Number 29 first, and send to me when completed. I will add it to our next monthly parcel for the troops.' I turned up Number 29. It was an airman's helmet. The printed directions said, 'Cast on 156.' It seemed a simple thing to do, but though I read the whole book through I could discover no instructions on the point.

Next day I bought in Oxford Street a little volume entitled, How to Knit, by One who has done it. I studied this for three nights, and a week later I had cast on 156. That was beginning of the end.

"The next direction was, 'Knit 12 rows plain.' This I managed fairly well, though when I got to the 12th row I found only 95 stitches on the needles. Then the book said, '13, knit 3, purl 2; 14, knit 2, purl 3; 15, knit plain row; 16, knit purl row; repeat the last 4 rows 8 times, decreasing at beginning and end of every 4th row and being careful to keep the pattern straight.' Since then my life has been a hideous dream. I would not give in. Night after night I locked myself in this room and struggled with it, and night after night the thing grew. What it was growing into I dared not guess, but it never had the appearance of a helmet. At last it began to frighten me, and to avoid looking at it I pinned brown-paper over the part I had finished.

One evening, just a week ago, the paper became unfastened and I saw what I had done. I ran upstairs with it, threw it inside the spare bedroom and locked the door on it. Ever since then I have been trying to brace myself to fetch it down again, but I cannot."

I stood up. "Give me the key of the spare bedroom," I said. He felt in his pocket, handed it to me and shrank back into his chair.

"Don't bring it down," he entreated; "I can't face it to-night."

I went upstairs and unlocked the spare bedroom door. Peters' work lay just inside on the floor, plainly visible by the landing light. I am not a nervous man, but I confess at the sight of it I caught my breath. There was something sinister about it. Its awful formlessness seemed the ultimate expression of a desolation deeper than despair. And as I looked the grey labyrinth drew me evilly to itself, and I heard a whisper that came from nowhere, "Take it back to him and leave him." I stepped forward, hesitated and shuddered. Then I picked it up, flung it from me into the grate and put a match to it.

When I went down Peters was standing at the foot of the stairs. He gazed at me without speaking. "I have burnt it," I said.

"Thank heaven!" he muttered and sank weakly to the floor. I put him to bed.

Neither of us has mentioned the subject since that night. Peters is quite his old self again. He has found a new outlet for his energies in making scrap-books for the Gurkhas.