"I am not joking, my young acquaintance. Can't you understand that to keep abreast with even a secondary Staff in the war-field you have to sweat out money at every pore? And—without gold for transport or thalers for trinkgelt—or seasoned knowledge to help you even if your pockets were full, what can you accomplish? I tell you frankly—nothing at all! But if you'll follow on the fringe of a Division, marching with the hangers-on and officers' servants—you'll get many a scrap of useful news and many a meaty bone of valuable information tossed to you day by day. And even with the rear of the Army Corps you elect to stick to, you'll sup your fill of raw-head and bloody bones—take the assurance from me. Will you—with the advice?"
The great man was so unassuming in his kindness that the little one hardly grasped the full extent of it, even as he said, blinking as though a cinder of the Lower Rhineland Railroad had got into his eye:
"Yes, sir, and thank you! I shall never forget how good you've been to me!" and got reply:
"You've no business to be here, boyo, but since you are, more by luck than grace, use your eyes and stuff your memory with things worth keeping. Now as my time is precious,—is there anything more you want to know?"
"Only one thing.... I have been puzzled by an—an incident that happened to a—fellow in my own position." P. C. Breagh boggled horribly: "Was regularly set on getting to the Front—hadn't a notion how to set about it—when he—accidentally—managed to get hold of a—kind of official authorization. An informal pass, certifying the bearer as trustworthy—written and signed by Count Bismarck himself...."
"And that wasn't half bad," the Doctor said, knocking the ash off the huge cigar, "for a beginner pretty well, it seems to me!"
Said P. C. Breagh:
"He was tremendously elated at having got the paper. It seemed to smooth away every difficulty. But later, when he found himself in touch with Prussian Army men—they,—not only the gentlemen privates qualifying for commissions, but the common rankers,—dropped him like a hot potato once they knew! And—I'd like to know the reason why they cut me—I mean him?—because they supposed him to belong to the Secret Intelligence Department? 'A spy is—a spy! Excuse me from further conversation!' His mouth twisted wryly, repeating the hateful words.
"I—understand." The Doctor stroked his beard. "And previously this young Englishman and the rank-and-file of the Guard Infantry"—P. C. Breagh kept as straight an upper-lip as was possible—"had chatted together upon friendly terms?"
"That was it. He had got on splendidly with them—one fellow especially. And—it hurt, being suddenly sent to Coventry!..."