Whereupon he gave me this extraordinary example of the need for a large army.
“Well, supposing,” he said, “that fifty English women in Madrid were suddenly murdered, what would you do?”
I thought for a moment, and then said that I should probably decide not to take my wife to Madrid until things had settled down a bit.
“I’m supposing that you’re Prime Minister,” said the Colonel, a little annoyed. “What is England going to do?”
“Ah!... Well, one might do nothing. After all, what is one to do? One can’t restore them to life.”
The Colonel, the Major, even the Adjutant, expressed his contempt for such a cowardly policy. So I tried again.
“Well,” I said, “I might decide to murder fifty Spanish women in London, just to even things up.”
The Adjutant laughed. But the Colonel was taking it too seriously for that.
“Do you mean it?” he asked.
“Well, what would you do, sir?”