THE COWARD.
Cecilia was knitting by the fire.
"What on earth have you two been doing?" she asked as we came in. "John looks as if he'd been in a boiler explosion."
"Hardly that," I said. "We've been playing with Chris—haven't we, John?"
John gasped.
"No, we haven't," he said. "On the contrary, they have been playing with me, Cecilia."
"Well, it's all the same thing, isn't it?" said Cecilia. "Anyhow, I heard you making a most frightful row."
"Of course I was making a row. So would you make a row if people suddenly mistook you for a Teddy Bear or something and started bunging you about the room."
"I haven't the least idea what you're talking about," said Cecilia, "but I think you're being intensely vulgar."
"Vulgar! 'Vulgar,' she says." He laughed bitterly. "You'd be vulgar too if you'd had that great hulking brute" (he pointed at me) "sitting on the small of your back, and a hooligan of a boy—"
Cecilia sat up and took notice.
"Hooligan!" she said, "Hooligan! Who's a Hooligan?"
"Sh! sister," I murmured. "You'll strain the epiglottis."
John turned on me savagely.
"You keep quiet. It isn't your epi—epi—what you said—and, anyway, can't I even have a quiet row with my own wife without—"
"John, calm yourself," said Cecilia crushingly. "Alan, tell me what you've been doing."
"Yes," muttered John, "tell her." He subsided into an armchair.
"Well," I said, "you see, Christopher and I were up in the nursery and getting on quite all right when John butted in—"
"I simply opened—"
"John, keep quiet," said his wife. "Well, Alan?"
"Well, the fact is, Chris and I were in the middle of a great war with all his soldiers. I had just firmly established fire superiority and was actually on the verge of launching a huge offensive—the one that was going to win the war, in fact—when, as I said, in butted this great clumsy elephant and knocked half of Christopher's army over."
"Purely an accident," said John.
"Will you keep quiet, or must I make you?" asked Cecilia.
"Well, of course," I went on, "finding ourselves suddenly attacked by a common foe, Chris and I naturally joined forces to defend ourselves."
"Defend!—" shrieked John. "No, I won't keep quiet another second. Defend! Why, they rushed at me like a couple of wild hyenas."
"My dear John," said Cecilia, "you attacked them first, and of course they defended themselves as best they could."
"Precisely," I said.
"After all, John," said Cecilia, "you ought to be glad your son is so ready to look after himself, instead of calling him a hooligan. You're always shouting about the noble art of self-defence."
"Noble art of self-defence rot," said John. "There's nothing in the noble art about pushing lead soldiers down a man's neck."
"Down your neck?" said Cecilia.
"Yes," said John. "I keep trying to tell you and you won't let me. That brute sat on the small of my back while Christopher pushed 'em down. The little beasts all had their bayonets fixed, too."
Cecilia and I laughed.
"Yes, laugh," said John bitterly. "It is funny that our child should be growing up a Bolshevist; trying to flay his own father. He'll be setting fire to the cat in a week and then you'll have another laugh."
"John," shrieked Cecilia, "how dare you? If you say another word about the darling—"
The door opened and Christopher came into the room.
He seemed to have washed his face or something. Anyway, he looked quite a little angel and that's hardly—however.
"I shall tell Chris what you've been saying," said Cecilia.
John jumped.
"No, no, Cecilia," he said in a strangled voice. "Don't betray me. I—I'm sorry; I withdraw everything. Cecilia, save me. Think of our courting days; remember—"
"Christopher," said Cecilia clearly, "you see your father? Go and pull his last remaining hairs out."
Christopher looked at her in amazement. Then he walked over to John, climbed on his knee and put an arm round his neck.
"I wouldn't hurt you, dear old Dad, would I?" he asked affectionately, looking at his mother in pained surprise.
John positively gasped with relief.
"Dear old Chris," he said.
"Oh, you hypocrite!" said Cecilia.
"Coward!" said I.
I was sitting on one of those dumpy hassock sort of things. John looked down at me vindictively for a moment and then a horrid smile started spreading about his nasty face.
"Christopher," he said very gently, "wouldn't it be a good thing if we pushed Uncle Alan over and knocked his slippers off, and then I'll sit on him while you tickle his feet?"
Now it sounds silly, but a cold prespiration came over me. Being tickled is so hopelessly undignified. And, anyhow, I simply can't stand it on the feet.
"John," I said severely, "don't be absurd."
Christopher gurgled.
"He's afraid," he said. "Come on, Dad."
I saw that they really meant it, and I can only suppose that I was carried away by one of those panics that you read of as attacking the bravest at times. Anyhow, quite suddenly I found myself moving rapidly round the table, out of the door and up the stairs. Halfway up I stopped to listen. Cecilia and John were laughing loudly and coarsely and Christopher was chanting "Uncle's got the wind up" in a piercing treble. Not at all a nice phrase for a small boy to have on his tongue.
It was all very galling for one who has fought and, I may say, bled for his country. I almost decided to go back and fight if necessary. Then I heard a stage-whisper from Christopher:
"Let's creep upstairs after him and tickle him to death. Shall we, Dad?"
Sheer hooliganism. It was impossible to fight with honour against such opponents. I disdained to try. I went hastily up the remaining stairs and locked myself in my room.
Polite Straphanger (to lady who has been standing on his toes for a considerable time). "Pardon me, Madam, but you'll have to get off here—this is as far as I go."