"You take enough trouble with your beastly crowd . . . a whole lot of trouble. . . . Yet . . ."
"Well, what's the matter with us?" Tietjens said. "We get our drafts ready in thirty-six hours less than any other unit in this command."
"I know you do," the other conceded. "It's only all these mysterious rows. Now . . ."
Tietjens said quickly:
"Do you mind my asking: Are we still on parade? Is this a strafe from General Campion as to the way I command my unit?"
The other conceded quite as quickly and much more worriedly:
"God forbid." He added more quickly still: "Old bean!", and prepared to tuck his wrist under Tietjens' elbow. Tietjens, however, continued to face the fellow. He was really in a temper.
"Then tell me," he said, "how the deuce you can manage to do without an overcoat in this weather?" If only he could get the chap off the topics of his mysterious rows they might drift to the matter that had brought him up there on that bitter night when he should be sitting over a good wood fire philandering with Mlle Nanette de Bailly. He sank his neck deeper into the sheepskin collar of his British warm. The other, slim, was with all his badges, ribands and mail, shining darkly in a cold that set all Tietjens' teeth chattering like porcelain. Levin became momentarily animated:
"You should do as I do. . . . Regular hours . . . lots of exercise . . . horse exercise . . . I do P.T. every morning at the open window of my room . . . hardening. . . ."
"It must be very gratifying for the ladies in the
