"It's all right," he said. "I've joined. I've had a week's leave.... I'm damned tired!" "My father's ill again, Gilbert. I've just had a telegram, and I'm going back to-night!..." "I'm awf'lly sorry, Quinny!" Gilbert said, quickly sympathetic. "I met Jimphy at Charing Cross. He's in khaki. He took me back to tea. Cecily's making mittens!..." "She would," said Gilbert. "She told me to tell you to go and see her!" "Did she, indeed?" "You'll stay here, I suppose," Henry went on, "until you're called up?" Gilbert nodded his head. "Let me know what happens to you afterwards, will you?" "Righto!" "I'll come back as soon as I can, Gilbert!" THE SIXTH CHAPTER 1 Mr. Quinn died at Christmas. The old man, weakened by his long illness, had been stunned by the War, and when his second illness seized him, he made no effort to resist it. He would lie very quietly for a long while, and then a paroxysm of fury would possess him, and he would shake his fist impotently in the air. "If they wanted a war," he shouted once, "why didn't they go and fight it themselves. They were paid to keep the peace, and ... and!..." He fell back on his pillow, exhausted, and when Henry, hurrying up the stairs to him the moment he heard the shout, reached him, he was gasping for breath. "It's all right, son!" he said when he had recovered himself. "It's all right!..." "It's foolish of you, father, to agitate yourself like that," Henry said to him, putting his arms round him and lifting him into a more comfortable position. "I can't help it, Henry, when I think of ... of all the young lads!... By God, they'd no right to do it!..." "Hush, father!..." "They'd no right to do it! You'd think they were greedy for blood ... young men's blood!" He pointed to an English newspaper lying on the floor. "Did you read that paper?" he said. "Yes." "Houndin' them into it," the old man went on. "Yellin' for young men! By God, I'd be ashamed ... parsons an' women an' old men that can't fight themselves, houndin' young men into it! If they'd any decency, they'd shut up...." "All right, father!" "The man that owns this paper ... whatshisname!..." "It doesn't matter, does it? Lie still and be quiet!" "I can't be quiet. Like a damned big monster, yellin' for boys to eat. Has he any childher, will you tell me?..." "I don't know, father!" "Of course he hasn't. An' here he is, yelpin' in his damned rag every day, 'Fee-fo-fum, I smell the blood of a young man!' Why don't they shove him at the Front ... the very front!" "You must keep quiet, father!" "All right, Henry, all right!" He was silent for a few minutes, and then he began again, in a quieter voice. "I'd have put the men that made it, the whole lot of them, in the front rank, and let them blow themselves to blazes. Old men sittin' in offices, an' makin' wars, an' then biddin' young men to pay the price of them! By God, that's mean! By God, that's low!..."