CHAPTER IX
Millwood felt tremendously gratified because his example in regard to abstinence from alcohol was followed in high quarters, and he became from that moment, not only a supporter of royalty, but a man of ideas regarding the deportment of folk staying at home. He had a row one evening in a South-Eastern train with a stubborn passenger who argued that there was no sense in the order concerning the pulling down of blinds. He ordered a strict method of economy in London Street, and gave lectures on the subject to Peter who, endeavouring to pass them on to his own household at Deptford, found himself slapped by a mother who, a pronounced bungler and a most inefficient person, evidently considered she had nothing to learn in domestic management. I had to check Millwood when I found that to new customers he was in the habit of saying:
"Now, the question you've got to put yourself, is, not 'Can I afford to buy this?' but 'Can I manage to do without it?'"
He did work that met with greater approval from me, in addressing out-door meetings during the special fortnight of recruiting. I happened to hear him speak at one of them. A military gentleman of the Colonel Edgington school stood up, and fiercely denounced the young men present who had not enlisted; they accepted his thundering attack with calm. A soldier who had been through Neuve Chapelle offered a grisly, and, no doubt, exact description of the fight; the youths shook their heads knowingly as though to indicate that they were far too wise to run any such risks. Then my brother-in-law stepped up and told an anecdote in his London accent: they began by laughing at him, and finished by laughing with him; he kept them amused—I had never before guessed that he had a sense of humour—for about eight minutes, and in the last two minutes of his speech, became forcible, strenuous, pathetic. He pointed to Greenwich Park—
"Where your mothers and fathers went sweet-hearting, my lads, years ago, and where you go sweet-hearting now, and I don't blame you!"
—And said we were at war that this might remain in our possession. He sent his arm out towards the river—
"Look at British commerce going up and down there, a-carrying food that keeps me and you from starving!"
He drew their attention to a double line of children going along under the control of an assistant mistress from one of the County Council schools—
"It's to protect dear little kiddies like them, my lads, that we ask you to become soldiers, and prevent the Germans from arriving here!"
Twenty young men walked up to the Recruiting Sergeant when Millwood ended his address: the band played "The Red, White and Blue," grown-up folk—and I was amongst them—gave signs of tears.