"They should tell us what's the matter," said an impatient man. "That's one of the stupid things in England—no one ever tells you what's wrong. No tact in this country—no imagination."
We all agreed. No imagination. It was the national curse.
"And yet," said another man with a smile, "we get there."
"Ah! that's our luck," said the impatient man. "We have luck far beyond our deserts." He was very cross about it.
Again the first man to speak hoped it was not an accident; and again the second man, fearing that someone might have missed it, repeated the old jest about presence of mind and absence of body.
"Talking of presence of mind," said a man who had not yet spoken, emerging from his book, "an odd thing happened to me not so very long ago—since the War—and, as it chances, happened in a railway carriage too—as it might be in this. It is a story against a friend of mine, and I hope he's wiser now, but I'll tell it to you."
We had not asked for his story but we made ourselves up to listen.
"It was during the early days of the War," he said, "before some of us had learned better, and my friend and I were travelling to the North. He is a very good fellow, but a little hasty, and a little too much disposed to think everyone wrong but himself. Opposite us was a man hidden behind a newspaper, all that was visible of him being a huge pair of legs in knickerbockers, between which was a bag of golf-clubs.
"My friend at that time was not only suspicious of everyone's patriotism but a deadly foe of golf. He even went so far as to call it Scotch croquet and other contemptuous names. I saw him watching the clubs and the paper and speculating on the age of the man, whose legs were, I admit, noticeably young, and he drew my attention to him too—by nudges and whispers. Obviously this was a shirker.
"For a while my friend contented himself with half-suppressed snorts and other signs of disapproval, but at last he could hold himself in no longer. Leaning forward he tapped the man smartly on the knee, with the question, 'Why aren't you in khaki?' It was an inquiry, you will remember, that was being much put at the time—before compulsion came in.