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I sat down in the club smoking-room to fill a pipe.

It was entirely natural that I should be talking to 'Boy' Bayley. We had met first, twenty odd years ago, at the Indian mess of the Tyneside Tail-twisters. Our last meeting, I remembered, had been at the Mount Nelson Hotel, which was by no means India, and there we had talked half the night. Boy Bayley had gone up that week to the front, where I think he stayed a long, long time.

But now he had come back.

'Are you still a Tynesider?' I asked.

'I command the Imperial Guard Battalion of the old regiment, my son,' he replied.

'Guard which? They've been Fusiliers since Fontenoy. Don't pull my leg, Boy.'

'I said Guard, not Guard-s. The I.G. Battalion of the Tail-twisters. Does that make it any clearer?'

'Not in the least.' 'Then come over to mess and see for yourself.