Peacock, finding that me and Percy minimus were rather above the common herd, told us that he was very anxious about his son at the War, and was very interested about the War in general, and made us interested in it, too. He read us a letter from his son at the Front, and Percy minimus said it brought home the horrors--especially in the matters of food.
Though not a great eater, Percy liked nice food better than any other kind, and then, owing to this great feeling for nice food, there happened the curious, and in fact most extraordinary, adventure of his life.
He came to me much excited one day with a newspaper. It was a week old, but otherwise perfect in every way, and it had started a scheme for sending the men at the Front a jolly good Christmas gift. For the sum of five shillings the newspaper promised to send off tobacco and cigarettes and sweets and chocolate and a new wooden pipe, all in one parcel; and so, as Percy minimus pointed out, if you could only rake up that amount and send it to the paper, it meant that one man in the trenches on Christmas Day would have the great joy of receiving all these luxuries in one simultaneous parcel from an unknown friend at home.
I said:
"It's a splendid idea, and I should like nothing better; but, of course, in our case, it is out of the question. We've both subscribed to the Hutchings' testimonial, and there's not a penny in sight for me this side of Christmas, and no more there is for you."
He admitted this, but said, because there wasn't a penny in sight, it didn't follow we might not, by some unheard-of deeds, rake up the money in time. And I said, well knowing what five shillings meant, that the deeds would certainly have to be unheard-of. I said:
"There's a fortnight before you have to send in the money, but, so far as I am concerned, it might just as well be ten years."
And he said:
"The problem simply is: How to raise five shillings out of nothing in fourteen days."
And I said: