"Look here," I said, "lend me the card to-night and I'll come again to-morrow. If it's only two lines you want, I think I can promise you them."
The doctor said mournfully that he might lend me the card, but that in that case it would be his painful duty to put up a different card for me on the next day.
There seemed to be nothing more to say. I was about to go when a face which I recognised emerged from the gloom. It had a shirt underneath it and then legs. The face began to grin at me.
"Hallo," said a voice.
"Hallo, Rogers," I said; "you enlisting? I thought you couldn't get leave." Rogers is in the Civil Service, and his work is supposed to be important.
"Well, I haven't exactly got leave—yet," he said awkwardly. "The fact is, I just came here to ask about a commission for a friend, and while I was here I—er—suddenly decided to risk it. You know Madingley, by the way, don't you?"
"I used to think so," I said.
But now I see that there is more in Madingley than I thought. His job in this war is simple—and exactly suited to himself. By arrangement with the War Office he sends likely recruits to make enquiries for him—and the sergeant does the rest.
A. A. M.