So they carried him home for the second time—back to the Land of Sanity: to the place where the noise of the water sounded ceaselessly over the rounded stones. And resting one afternoon on a sofa in the drawing-room Jim dozed.

The door burst open, and Sybil came in. "Boy, do you see, they've given you a D.S.O. 'For conspicuous gallantry in holding up an almost isolated position for several hours against vastly superior numbers of the enemy. He was badly wounded just before relief came.'"

Her eyes were shining. "Oh! my dear—I'm so proud of you! Do you remember saying it was a glorious madness?"

Into his mind there flashed the picture of a German officer's face—distorted with terror—cringing: just as a pick came down....

"Yes, girl, I remember," he answered softly. "I remember. But, thank God! I'm sane again now."

And now I will ring down the curtain. For Jim Denver the black and white have gone; even the grey of the Land of Topsy Turvy is hazy and indistinct. The guns are silent: the men and the women are—sane.

The shepherd is out of sight amongst the trees; the purple is changing to grey, the grey to black; there is no sound saving only the tireless murmur of the river....

Herman Cyril McNeile was an officer in the Royal Engineers who published under the pseudonym "Sapper".

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Hyphen added: "bed[-]rock" (p. 303).

Hyphen removed: "ward[-]room" (p. 167), "sand[-]bags" (p. 188), "stock[-]broker" (p. 265).

The following words are inconsistently hyphenated but have not been changed: "dug[-]out", "half[-]way", "sand[-]bags", "sign[-]post", "super[-]human", "table[-]cloth".

Page 291: "Panting Lizze" changed to "Panting Lizzie".