"I am writing this by the firelight, and if only you were here we'd draw up our chairs close and p'r'aps——"
"My Aunt Agatha sent it to me," continued the voice of the importunist. "Read what's written on the back."
The Sub, who was what is called a good mess-mate, turned the pasteboard over rather absent-mindedly.
"Love your enemies," was written in angular spidery handwriting across the inoffensive surface of the card. The Sub was twenty, but he had known four years of warfare against the Powers of Evil, which we call Germany for short.
"Any relation of Lansdowne or Ramsay Macdonald, your Aunt Agatha?" he inquired, and tossed the card back, to return instantly to a firelit twilight and "p'r'aps."
The Surgeon looked round the Mess in search of a fresh confidant. The First Lieutenant sat hunched up on his right, holding a bunch of sheets of paper clenched in his hand, and staring at the stove with unseeing eyes.
"Here, Number One," said Aunt Agatha's nephew, and smote his neighbour on the knee. "You look as if you wanted brightening up. Read that, my lad! Both sides. Every picture tells a story."
The Lieutenant turned eyes like those of a startled horse upon the speaker.
"Eh?" he said. He, too, had come back a long way to answer a living voice.
"Read that, my pippin."