We had hardly settled down to Mess when an orderly, armed with a buff slip, shot through the door, narrowly missed colliding with the soup, and pulled up by Grigson's chair. Grigson is our Flight Commander—one of those rugged and impenetrable individuals who seem impervious to any kind of shock. There is a legend that on one occasion four machine-gun bullets actually hit him and bounced off, which gave the imitative Hun the idea of armour-plating his machines.

Grigson took the slip and read, slowly and paraphrastically: "Night operations. A machine will be detailed to leave the ground at 10:30 pip emma and lay three fresh eggs on the railway-station at ——. At the special request of the G.O.C.R.F.C., Lieutenant Maude, the well-known strafer, will oblige. Co-operation by B and C Flights."

Lieutenant Maude, commonly known by a loose association of ideas as Toddles, buried a heightened complexion in a plate of now tepid soup. Someone having pulled him out and wiped him down, he was understood to remark that he would have preferred longer notice, as it had been his intention that night to achieve a decisive victory in the Flight ping-pong tournament.

"Oh, but, Toddles," came a voice, "think how pleased old Fritz will be to see you. You'll miss the garden party, but you'll be in nice time for the fire-works—Verey lights and flaming onions and pretty searchlights. Don't you love searchlights, Toddles?"

Toddles stretched out an ominous hand towards the siphon, and was only deterred from his fell intention by the entry of the C.O.

"Oh, Grigson," said the C.O. pleasantly, "the Wing have just rung through to say they want that raid done at once, so you might get your man up toute suite."

Toddles was exactly halfway through his fish.

Now, though Toddles has never to my knowledge appeared before the C.O. at dead of night attired in pink silk pyjamas, begging with tears in his eyes to be allowed to perform those duties which the dawn would in any case impose upon him (this practice is not really very common in the R.F.C.), he is a thoroughly sound and conscientious little beggar. And, making allowances for the fallibility of human inventions, and the fact that two other young gentlemen were also engaged in the congenial task of making structural alterations to the railway station at ——, Toddles comes out of the affair with an untarnished reputation.

Whether it was that his more fastidious taste in architecture detained him I do not know, but it was fully ten minutes after the others had landed before we who were watching on the aerodrome became aware that Toddles was coming home to roost. The usual signals were exchanged, and Toddles finished up a graceful descent by making violent contact with the ground, bouncing seven times and knocking over two flares before finally coming to rest. His machine appeared to be leaning on its left elbow in a slightly intoxicated condition.

"Bust the V strut," said Toddles cheerfully. We assured him that one would hardly notice it. Grigson meanwhile had been examining the under carriage with scientific care, and turned to ask him how he had got on.

"Bong," said Toddles, beaming; "absolutely bong. They spotted us, but Archie was off colour."

"Did you see your pills burst?"

Toddles beamed more emphatically than ever. "One in what I took to be the station yard, one right on the line, and one O.K. ammunition truck; terrific explosion—nearly upset me. Three perfectly good shots."

So far Toddles' account agreed very fairly with the two we already had.

"Didn't have any trouble with the release gear, I suppose?" said Grigson. "Nasty thing that. I've known it jam before now."

"Well," answered Toddles, "it did stick a bit, but I just yanked it over and it worked."

"Splendid!" said Grigson brightly. "A nice bit of work, and very thoughtful of you to bring home such jolly souvenirs."

"Look here," replied Toddles with warmth, "who the devil are you getting at?"

"Nothing; oh, nothing at all."

Grigson moved away towards the Mess. "By the way," he said, "you're quite certain they were your own shots? I should have a good look at that under carriage if I were you."

We all went down on hands and knees. Lying placidly in the rack with an air of well-merited ease born of the consciousness that they had, without any effort of their own, avoided a fatiguing duty, were three large bombs.

"Er—ah—hum," said Toddles. "Now then, Sergeant, hurry up and get this machine back into the shed!"

And the Sergeant's face was the best joke of all.

"Man, handy at vice, been in motor repair shop."—Daily Chronicle.

Still, it must not be assumed that life in a garage is necessarily fatal to virtue.