"It will be interesting to see your nephew again."
The war had passed the first anniversary of its birthday and still went on, and the news that arrived was occasionally of a cheerful nature; no justification, however, occurred for putting out the Union Jack I was keeping in reserve. We had a flag day of another kind in Greenwich, and I provided tea in the shop for some of the white-gowned young ladies who sold the decorations; as they left a middle-aged man came to the doorway and thanked me in an elaborate way for the hospitality shown; I took it that he had something to do with the organisation, and answered civilly, nothing more. He made a sympathetic allusion to poor little Serbia, mentioned the attacks that were being made on Lord Kitchener and said he did not approve of them. He thought the single young men ought to join, before the married men were called up. He did not feel inclined to trust Winston Churchill. He offered to bet sixpence that Greece meant mischief. He doubted whether the Government was acting wisely in announcing a further restriction of licensing hours, and argued that the people ought to be consulted in these matters. His conversation seemed to me to be lacking in originality, and I was getting tired of it when a police-sergeant came along, known to me by an occasional exchange of nods, and a friendly remark concerning changes in the weather. Looking around, I discovered that my talkative visitor had vanished hurriedly.
"How's business, ma'am?" inquired the sergeant.
"Mustn't complain," I answered. "Thanks to Woolwich, I'm able to muddle along. How do you find matters?"
"Slack," he said, regretfully. "Nothing doing at all. 'Pears to me, crime is becoming a lost art. I shall soon be like Othello."
"Not jealous of your wife, are you?"
"I mean my occupation will be gone. I'm suffering from monotony; that's what's the matter with me. Fortunately for you, you're not troubled with it. And I'm told you're uncommon keen on a bargain."
"My work is to buy cheap, and sell dear."
"It's a job," remarked the sergeant, "where you have to keep your wits about you. By-the-bye, I heard something in your favour the other day, but," he tapped at his forehead, "it's gone. I shall think of it when I'm trying to remember something else."
The middle-aged man called again the next afternoon, but I was busy with a customer who had bought a pianoforte and was explaining to me that her neighbours, hitherto friendly, were declaring that the music produced from the instrument by her two little girls was in no way pleasing to the ear. She happened to be one of the newly affluent, and my suggestion that a pianola arrangement should be fixed, received her consideration. The other caller, seeing that I was not prepared to break off the discussion in order to attend to him, placed a card on a dresser, and said he would pay a visit at a more convenient moment. The card bore the name of Professor Basil Chailey; in the corner, the title of a West End club. I noticed that on the back was pencilled what seemed to be a day's expenses. Newspaper, lunch (ninepence for lunch), tea, railway ticket, pair of boot-laces. Evidently the professor was obeying the suggestions regarding war-time economies.