"Er, er—somewhere round here, I know.... I do believe they've forgotten to put it in...."
Gladys (who is only ten) found it for us eventually, and we arranged a very fine battle there with a river in between.
The Meuse was easier. We infested its banks with our hosts and fixed a splendid array of troops all along the Franco-German frontier. Next we invaded Germany and Austria from the other side with several Russian armies and put some local troops to meet them. Without boasting, I think I may say the result was very pretty. But to our dismay we found we had a number of armies left. Helen said they must fight somewhere.
"You can't keep all those troops idle," she said. "Look at the waste of good material."
"That's true," I admitted. "Perhaps my newspaper can help."
It did indeed contain enough rumours of battles to dispose of all our flags and a few dozen besides, but at the same time it urged me to accept unofficial statements with the greatest reserve. Mr. F. E. Smith, it declared (it was a Liberal print; such are the vicissitudes of war) was the only reliable authority. Helen and I decided we could accept information from him alone. But Mr. Smith gave us no help. I was worried for the moment, I admit; here were all these armies left in the envelope with nowhere to go to.
Then I had an inspiration such as comes to a man but seldom in a lifetime. The Fates should decide.
I pushed the furniture out of the way, led Helen to the other side of the room, blindfolded her, and thrust a British army into her hand.
"The idea is to walk across the room without looking and stick it somewhere on the map," I explained. "Scandinavia and the Peninsula are out of bounds until we hear further from the Kaiser. If you hit them you have another prod."
Helen planted her army near Moscow. I took a Servian flag and planted it in the North Sea.