that he'd bolt for cover, but he didn't. He bent over deliberately as if he had been a fearless hero--and maybe he was--and he picked up Dudley again and started on, laboring, this time in walking. He was hit badly. But he made the trench; he brought in Dudley. Then such a howl of hurrahs greeted him from the men who watched the rescue as poor little Aristophe Beaurame--" "Ah!" I interjected, and Bobby turned and stared--"as the poor little scared rat had not dreamed, or had any right to dream would ever greet his conduct on earth. He dropped Dudley at my feet and turned with his flabby mouth open and his great stupid eyes like saucers, towards the men who rushed to shake his hand and throw at him words of admiration that choked them to get out. And then he keeled over. So you see. It was an equal chance at one second, whether a man should be shot for a deserter or--win the Victoria Cross." "What!" I shouted at my guest. "What! Not the Victoria Cross! Not Aristophe!" Bobby looked at me in surprise. "You're a great claque for me," he said. "You seem to take an interest in my hero. Yes, he got it. He was badly hurt. One hand nearly gone and a wound in his side. I was lucky enough to be in London on a day three months later, and to be present at the ceremony, when the young French-Canadian, spoiled for a soldier, but splendid stuff now for a hero, stood out in the open before the troops in front of Buckingham Palace and King George pinned the V.C. on his breast. They say that he's back in his village, and the whole show. I hear that he tells over and over the story of his heroism and the rescue of '_Mon Lieutenant_.' to never failing audiences. Of course, John is looking after him, for the hand which John saved was the hand that was shot to pieces in saving John, and the Tin Lizzie can never make his living with that hand again. A deserter, a coward--decorated by the King with the Victoria Cross! Queer things happen in war!" There was a stir, a murmur as of voices, of questions beginning, but Bobby was not quite through. "War takes the best of the best men, and the best of the cheapest, and transfigures both. War doesn't need heroes for heroism. She pins it on anywhere if there's one spot of greatness in a character. War does strange things with humanity," said Bobby. And I, gasping, broke out crudely in three words: "Our Tin Lizzie!" I said, and nobody knew in the least what I meant, or with what memories I said it. HE THAT LOSETH HIS LIFE SHALL FIND IT