"It is, Mrs. B.," agreed Bindle, drawing his pipe from his coat pocket and proceeding to charge it from a small oblong tin box. "We ain't exactly wot you'd call an 'oneymoon couple, you an' me."
"The war's over."
"It is," he agreed.
"Then why can't we have a holiday?" she demanded, looking up aggressively from her paper.
"Now I asks you, Mrs. B.," he said, as he returned the tin box to his pocket, "can you see you an' me in a bell-tent, or paddlin', or playin' ring-a-ring-a-roses?" and he proceeded to light his pipe with the blissful air of a man who knows that it is Sunday, and that The Yellow Ostrich will open its hospitable doors a few hours hence.
"It says they're very comfortable," Mrs. Bindle continued, her eyes still glued to the paper.
"Wot is?"
"The tents."
"You ought to ask Ging wot a bell-tent's like, 'e'd sort o' surprise you. It's worse'n a wife, 'otter than religion, colder than a blue-ribboner. When it's 'ot it bakes you, when it's cold it lets you freeze, and when it's blowin' 'ell an' tinkers, it 'oofs it, an' leaves you with nothink on, a-blushin' like a curate 'avin' 'is first dip with the young women in the choir. That's wot a bell-tent is, Mrs. B. In the army they calls 'em 'ell-tents."
"Oh! don't talk to me," she snapped as she rose and proceeded to clear away the breakfast-things, during which she expressed the state of her feelings by the vigour with which she banged every utensil she handled. As she did so Bindle proceeded to explain and expound the salient characteristics of the army bell-tent.