Just then, with great good luck, he manages to catch the journalist's grey eye.
"That's a dead 'un too," he repeats loudly.
How exciting to see whether the author, in his quite natural desire to have a little more wine, will succeed in penetrating his host's dreaminess and absorption in the anæsthetics of the Belgian Army.
And then all of a sudden the journalist wakes up.
"Would you like some more wine?" he inquires.
"These are both dead 'uns," asserts the author courageously.
"We'll have some more!" says the journalist.
And more Burgundy comes! But to the eminent journalist it is non-existent. For his mind is still filled with a hundred thousand things the Belgian Army want,—the iodine they need, and the anæsthetics. And nothing else exists for him at that moment but to do what he can for the nation that has laid down its life for England.
Burgundy, indeed!
And yet one feels glad that the author eventually gets his extra bottle. He has done something for England too. He has given us laughter when our days were very black.