I couldn't squash them even if I knew I would grow such a huge and splendid national character, and such a power for good, that they would give me a gold-leaf Pamela Memorial in Kensington Gardens with a lightning conductor, and ten lines in the London Guide Book all to myself.
XV
I have lost my job, and the little Russian tailoress presses my skirt every day and has lent me a pound.
Russia doesn't seem a lucky country for me; the cinema proprietor was a young Russian Jew, and when the August orders about Russians serving came up he got five months' exemption, and now he's joined up and the cinema has been turned into a Y.M.C.A. canteen. I help them two nights a week.
It was funny; the other day there were a lot of men expected in. It's just outside the station, and often we get officers, and an officer in Walter Markham's regiment came in. I knew it was his battalion. The officer was just home on leave. I asked him if he knew Captain Markham.
"Used to be under him," he said. "Went West, poor chap! Died in a hospital somewhere up North."
"Are you sure he died?" I said.
"Positive. He had a sudden relapse. Ballyntine, one of our senior officers, was pipped at the same time and got sent to the same hospital. He was there when Markham died. He's rejoined since; he's out there now. Why? Did you know Markham?"
"He was a great friend of a friend of mine."
"Jolly decent chap," the young officer said.