"I hear the Generals are in uproarious spirits," he said.
"One of them," answered the Colonel quietly.
"They won't pay the price," continued Joe. "They'll make—trust them. There's the man they'll leave to take the punishment they've brought on the coontry." He nodded to Ernie who was busy with some mates extracting chocolates from a penny-in-the-slot-machine.
The Colonel's eye glittered. He had spied Stanley Bessemere doing, indeed over-doing, the hearty amongst the men by the barrier.
"After all it's nothing to what we owe our friend there and the politicians," he said brightly, and made towards his victim, with an almost mincing motion.
Since the declaration of war his solitary relief from intolerable anxieties had been baiting the junior member for the Borough. He left him no peace, hanging like a gadfly on his flank. At the club, in the street, on committees at the Town-hall there rose up to haunt the young man this inexorable spectre with the death's head, the courteous voice, and the glittering smile.
"Ah, Bessemere!" he said gently. "Here still!—I heard you had enlisted, you and Smith."
The other broke away and, seeing Ernie close by, shook hands with him. The move was unfortunately countered by Joe Burt.
"You've shook 'ands with Mr. Caspar five times since I've been here," he remarked tartly. "Can't you give somebody else a turn now?"
Just then, mercifully, Mr. Trupp rolled up, coughing.