“To capture Germans, Tish.”
“A lot of chance he’ll have!” she said with a sniff. “What does he know about raids? And you’d think to hear you talk, Lizzie, that pulling Germans out of a trench was as easy as letting a dog out after a neighbor’s cat. It’s like Pershing and all the rest of them,” she added bitterly, “to take a left-handed newspaper man, who can’t shut his right eye to shoot with the left, and start him off alone to take the whole German Army.”
“He wouldn’t go alone,” said Mr. Burton.
“Certainly not!” Tish retorted. “I know him, and you don’t, Mr. Burton. He’ll not go alone. Of course not! He’ll pick out a lot of men who play good bridge, or went to college with him, or belong to his fraternity, or can sing, or some such reason, and——”
Here to my great surprise she flung down one of our two last remaining teacups and retired precipitately into the ruins. Not for us to witness her majestic grief. Rachel—or was it Naomi?—mourning for her children.
However, in a short time she reappeared and stated that she was sick of fooling round on back roads, and that we would now go directly to the Front.
“We’ll never pull it off,” Mr. Burton said to me in an undertone.
“She has never failed, Mr. Burton,” I reminded him gravely.
Before we started Mr. Burton saw Hilda, but he came back looking morose and savage. He came directly to me.
“Look me over,” he said. “Do I look queer or anything?”