He didn't seem to be a creature of the living present, but a distant memory on which I could look calmly.

I thought a good deal about my battalion and the comedy of my present position.

You see I was getting better, for I called it comedy now, not tragedy.
But chiefly I thought of my mission.

All that wild day in the snow it had seemed the merest farce.

The three words Harry Bullivant had scribbled had danced through my head in a crazy fandango.