The Red Planet

he-limbed pathetically eager little beast, deep bay with white tips to his ears. Marigold bought him for me last spring, from some

y; but when I tried to pull him up I found that "Whoa-Ho-sea!" came in rather pat; so Hosea he has remained. He has quite a fast, stylish little trot, and I can square my elbows and cock my head on one s

me a letter they had received from Oswald's Colonel, full of praise of the gallant boy,

wiped out and he should come in. Now I'm only fifty-five and as strong as a horse. I can reasonably expect to live, say, another twenty years. If Oswald were alive I should o

our estate at your

be idiotic. I am considering my debt to Oswald, and therefore, logically, my debt to the country. It is twenty thousand pounds. I'm going to pay it. The only question is-and the question has kept Edith and myself awake

. If I were like you, I should go into a shop and buy a super-dreadnought, and stic

Fenimore, severely,

cost of the meal and insisted on their accepting half-a-crown apiece. It reminded me too of the rugged old Lancashire commercial blood that was in him-blood that only shewed itself on the rarest and greatest of occasions-the blood of his grandfather, the Manchester cotton-spinner, who founded the fortun

arked Sir Anthony. "It's only vanity that prompt

hance thinking of advertising our gift or contributi

red legs apart, regarding her with the air of a cock-sparrow accused of murdering his young, or a sensitive jock

e vanity come in?"

private and particular and idiosyncratic way of coming to an agreement. The third party who tries to foist on it his own suggest

ee I'm right?" and by his w

. But since you feel like that,

yself. Perhaps I'm a bi

It's too big to let other people manage or mis-manage. Suppose you decided on motor-ambulances or hospital trains, for instance, it would be yo

think I know my way ab

he reverse, hiding your light under a

me, rubbed his hands,

what I was sa

t what I was trying t

tand, anything of the kind. But you see they had come in their own qu

ea," said Sir Anthony, rubbing his

ital train," sa

ds still and shivers at the night, and the more he is belaboured the more he shivers, standing stock-still with ears thrown back and front legs thrown forwa

asked Sir Anthony.

" said I. "This v

nd trotted aw

shed undergraduate career at Oxford last summer. He was a man of birth, position, and, to a certain extent, of fortune. Phyllis Gedge was the daughter, the pretty and attractive daughter, of Daniel Gedge, the socialistic builder who did not hold with war. What did young Randall mean by walking

l," said I. "I haven'

though not long, yet lacked the military trimness befitting the heads of

off," I said; "drop in after dinner

m it wise to adopt a propitiatory attitude. Perhaps also he retained a certain affectionate respect for me, seeing that I had known him as a tiny boy in a sailor suit, and had fed him at Harrow (as I did poor Oswald Fenimore at Wellington) with Mrs. Marigold's famous potted

m James, I have dipped into quite a lot of them-Descartes, Berkeley, Kant, Schopenhauer (the thrice besotted Teutonic ass who said that women weren't beautiful), for I hate to be thought an ignorant duffer-and I have never come across in them anything worth kno

does not immortalise even such an ass as Schopenhauer, without sufficient reason. All I want to convey to you is that I am only a plain, ordinary God-fearing, law-abiding Englishman, and that when young Randall Holmes brought down

h I had always been impotently wanting to say. And a year or so afterwards-when I praised his poem-he would shrink in a more than deprecating attitude: I might just as well have extolled him for seducing the wife of his dearest friend. His later poems, of which he was immodestly proud-"Sensat

andsome and intellectual, and wearing a velvet dinner ja

were very busy

his cigarette

at

ten, but all indifferent and valueless. If it has a swing, it's merely vulgar, and what isn't vulgar is academic, commonpla

u writte

Review. I also write the political articl

y I saw dismayed me. I couldn't understand why the Government were such ins

ring smile, defended

with me at Oxford-who must naturally have a clearer vision than men

, like his verse, seemed to deal with unrealities. It was a negation of everything, save the intellectual. If he and his friends had been in power, there would never have been a war; th

all over and done with. We're up against the tough pr

t matter-not in the wide conception of things. It is the pa

aists in water in the trenches

"if they had time to go into the reconstruct

et. He fidgeted about the room, threw a log on the fire, drew the curtains closer, always with an occasional malevolent

anaged to get into

tactical pace or

," he said in a respec

cheek flush. "If Marigold had his way h

nches of the present," said I.

complained sometimes-defaulters, say, in the old d

mean, Major

's making him hang-dog miserable that he's not allowed to give the rest to-morrow. You must forgive his plain speaking," I continued, gathering warmth as I went on, "but he

arms, and his dark eyes flashed and a smile of con

y? Why, I'm working night and da

ady told y

n the other. I had been ill at ease concerning him for months, but I had proposed to regain his confidence in a tactful, fathe

cended to

dear Major, from a commonsense point of view-" He forgot, the amazing young idiot, that he was talking not to a maiden aunt, but to a hard-bitten old soldier. "What good would it serve to stick the comparatively rare man-I say it in all modesty-the comparatively rare man like myself in the trenches? It would be foolish waste. I assure you I'm putting all my talents at the disposal of the country." Seeing, I suppose, in my eyes, the maintained stoniness of non-conviction, he we

conflict. We can't all be practical fighters. You wouldn

nty." I had completely lost my temper. "And if I saw them doing nothing, while the country was asking for MEN, but writing

ion. You're a military man and must look at everything from a military point of view. It wou

what

to be hovering near T

ndulgent smile. "You are quotin

ink I do," I cried. I had forgo

ent equilibrium-" He made a little rocking gesture with his grac

e Phyllis Gedg

feminine solution of all intellectual concepts. She, the woman, is the soul of conflicting England. She is torn both ways. But as she has to breed men, some day, she is instinctively on our side. She is invaluable to me. She inspires my poem

h to Heaven she did. A round cipher of naught, the symbol of inanity. She takes you for an honourable

's the opinion of her I a

never have let you walk about with her at nightfall, with your arm round h

uded you would broach this subject. I came prepared to give you a comple

" said I angrily. "What are you

"Quite ho

ean ma

said he, e

thing? That's

ly not the other thing.

earth are yo

afraid you will

tleman. You're a sort of philanderer, somewhere in between. You neither mean to fight like a man nor love like

and pressed the electric button beside the mantelpiece. He turned

y life long I've owed you kindnesses I can't ever rep

had hoped your father's

y ideas in his head save the making of money. I don't see what

matter of profound indifference to me. But I shall give orders t

absurd,"

all,"

ll Sergeant Marigold appeared and sto

to my wheel-chair, wi

Major, for this disast

eath the light shawl

"as to think I don't understand. In the present position

d wide the door, and Randall, with

he whole of that

lant lad died in battle; there is nothing more to be said, nothing more to be thought. The finality, heroically sublime, overwhelms the poor w

or Cambridge, I forget-who, when asked why he was not fighting, repl

l, all night. The only consolation I had was to bring commonsense to my aid and to meditate

sick for young