"Yes, sir, my husband, sir," she replied as she grasped the cable. She gave it a pull, and added "—or he was, sir. He's home now, sir!"
"On leave?"
"O no, sir, he's wounded, sir—he lost his left arm at the shoulder, sir, and he's going down to Roehampton today, sir, to see if they can teach him some kind of a trade there, sir," answered the woman.
The wonders of Roehampton where they re-educate the cripples of war and turn them out equipped with such trades as their maimed bodies may acquire had been displayed for Henry and me the day before.
"Tell him to try typewriting and stenography, one armed men are doing wonders with that down at Roehampton. Any children?"
"Two, sir," she answered as the elevator approached the mezzanine floor, "three and five, sir!"
"Three and five—well, well, isn't that fine! Aren't you lucky! Tell him to try that stenography; that will put him in an office and he'll have a fine chance to rise there. You must give them an education—a good one; send them to College. If they're going to get on in this new world they will need every ounce of education you can stuff into them. But it will be a splendid thing for both of you working for that. Is education expensive in England?"
"Very, sir. I hardly see how we can do it, sir!"
"That's too bad—now in our country education, from the primer to the university, is absolutely free. The state does the whole business and in my state they print the school books, and more than that they give a man a professional education, too, without tuition fees—if he wants to become a lawyer or a doctor or an engineer or a chemist or a school teacher!"
"Is that so, sir," the cable was running through her hands as she spoke. Then she added as the elevator passed the second floor, "If we could only have that here, sir. If we only could, sir!"