As I said, taken separately the two incidents mean but little: taken together—there is humour: the whole humour of war.
An itinerant fishmonger and a worthy stockbroker are inculcated with wonderful ideals in order to fit them for sallying forth at night and killing complete strangers. And they revel in it....
The highest form of emotionalism on one hand: a hole in the ground full of bluebottles and smells on the other....
War ... war in the twentieth century.
But there is nothing incompatible in it: it is only strange when analysed in cold blood. And Jim Denver, as I have said, was sane again: while Vane, the stockbroker, was still mad.
In fact, it is quite possible that the peculiar significance of the interruption in his story never struck him: that he never noticed the Contrast.
And what is going to be the result of it all on the Vanes of England? "Once the office filled my life." No man can go to the land of Topsy Turvy and come back the same—for good or ill it will change him. Though the madness leave him and sanity return, it will not be the same sanity. Will he ever be content to settle down again after—the lawyer, the stockbroker, the small clerk? Back to the old dull routine, the same old train in the morning, the same deadly office, the same old home each evening. It hardly applies to the Jim Denvers—the men of money: but what of the others?
Will the scales have dropped from the eyes of the men who have really been through it? Shall we ever get back to the same old way? Heaven knows—but let us hope not. Anyway, it is all mere idle conjecture—and a digression to boot.