"Well, I'll go upstairs an' get a shave," said Nicky-Nan. "That'll feel like Sunday anyhow."
"Poor lonely creatur'!" thought Mrs Penhaligon, who always pitied bachelors. On an impulse she said, "An' when you've done, Mr Nanjivell, there'll be fried eggs an' bacon, if you're not above acceptin' the compliment for once."
When Nicky-Nan came downstairs again, clean-shaven and wearing his Sunday suit of threadbare sea-cloth, he found the Penhaligon children seated at the board, already plying their spoons in bowls of bread-and-milk. As a rule, like other healthy children, they ate first and talked afterwards. But to-day, with War in the air, they chattered, stirring the sop around and around. 'Beida's eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed.
"War's a funny thing," she mused. "Where do you feel it, Mother?"
"Don't clacky so much, that's a darlin', but go on with your breakfast." But Mrs Penhaligon heaved a sigh that was answer enough.
"Well, I wanted to know, because down by Quay-end I heard old Aun' Rundle say it made her feel like the bottom of her stomach was fallin' out. I suppose it takes people differ'nt as they get up in years."
"I know azackly where I feel it!" announced 'Biades. "It's here." He set down his spoon and pointed a finger on the third button of his small waistcoat. "An' it keeps workin' up an' down an' makin' noises just like Billy Richard's key-bugle."
"Then it's a mercy it ben't real," commented his brother.
"'Biades is right, all the same." 'Beida regarded the child and nodded slowly. "It do feel very much like when you hear a band comin' up the street. It catches you—" She broke off and laid her open palm on her chest a little below the collar. "An' then it's creepin' up the back of your legs an' along your arms, an' up your backbone, right into the roots o' your hair. But the funniest thing of all is, the place looks so differ'nt—an' all the more because there's so little happenin' differ'nt. . . . I can't tell just what I mean," she owned candidly, turning to Nicky-Nan; "but it don't seem we be here somehow, nor the houses don't seem real, somehow. 'Tis as if your real inside was walkin' about somewhere else, listenin' to the band."
"Nonsense your tellin'," 'Bert interrupted. "Father's put on his uniform. How can you make it that things ben't differ'nt, after that?"