“Don’t racket too much,” said Lady Staines, planting her last bulb with scientific skill. “They say keeping women’s very expensive up there — on account of the Russian Princes.”
“By the by,” said Winn, “thanks for the money. Had any difficulty in extracting it?”
“Not much,” said Lady Staines, withdrawing to the lawn. “Charles got rather in the way.”
“Silly ass,” observed Winn. “Didn’t want me to have it, I suppose?”
“No, he did want you to have it,” replied Lady Staines, “but he needn’t have been such a fool as to have said so. It nearly upset everything. His idea was, you see, that if his father gave you something — he and James would have to be bought off. So they were in the end, but they’d have had more if he’d played his hand better.”
Winn laughed. “Jolly to be home again,” he remarked. “Dinner as usual?”
“Yes,” said Lady Staines, “and don’t forget one of the footmen’s a Plymouth Brother and mustn’t be shocked. It’s so difficult to get any one nowadays, one mustn’t be too particular. He said he could stand your father by constant prayer, but he gave notice over Charles. Charles ought to have waited till dessert to let himself go.”
The dinner passed off well. Sir Peter and Winn had one never failing bone of contention, the rival merits of the sister services. Sir Peter expressed on every possible occasion in his son’s presence, a bitter contempt for the army, and Winn never let an opportunity pass without pointing out the gorged and pampered state of the British Navy.
“If we’d had half the money spent on us, Sir, that you keep guzzling over,” Winn cheerfully threw out, “we could knock spots out of Europe. The trouble with England is — she treats her sailors as if they were the proud sisters — and we are shoved out like Cinderella into the scullery to do all the dirty work.”
“Pooh!” said Sir Peter, “work! Is that what you call it — takin’ a horse out for an hour or two, and shoutin’ at a few men on a parade ground. What’s an army good for — even when it’s big enough to be seen with the naked eye and capable of attacking a few black savages with their antiquated weapons. Why you’re safe, that’s what you are — dead safe! Land’s beneath you — immovable — you can get anywhere you want to as easy as sliding down banisters! Targets keep still too! It’s nothing to hit a thing you can stand to fire at while it stands still to be fired at! Child’s play, that’s what it is. Look at us, something up all the time, peace or war. We’ve got the sea to fight — wind too — and thick weather. We’ve got our pace to mind and if we ever did clinch up we’d have to do our fighting at a rate that’d make an express train giddy — and running after a target goin’ as hard as we do! That’s what I call something of a service. No! No! The Army’s played out. You’re for ornament now, meant to go round Buckingham Palace and talk to nurse-maids in the Park.”