Through devious courses the conversation slid back to his nephew's family and household ways. Liz "don't sit down to dinner 'long o' the others." There are six boys besides her husband for her to wait upon, so that, were she to begin, "before she'd got a mouthful the others 'd be wantin' their second helpin'." The custom sounds barbarous--or shall I say archaic?--until one remembers that the husband and one or two of the boys must get home from work to dinner and back again within an hour. On Sunday afternoon "Jack was off to the town to this P.S.A. or whatever it is. He brought home another prize too.... A beautiful book--a foot by nine inches, and three or four inches thick! Jack _can_ read, no mistake!" Unfortunately he reads in a very loud voice, so that Bettesworth grows weary of it, in spite of his passion for being read to. On Saturday night Jack was reading the paper, and said, "'Like any more?' 'Not to-night, Jack; I be tired.' All about this war" (in Manchuria). "Sunday he said, 'Shall I read ye the paper, uncle? 'Tis nothin' but the war.' 'Then we won't have it to-day.'" Bettesworth's opinions on the war were tedious to me; he had so greatly misunderstood. He thought that, after Mukden, the Russians were retreating "right back into St. Petersburg," which would have been a retreat indeed!" But it ought to be stopped now"; the other Powers should interfere and say, "You've had your go in, and now you must get back into your own bounds." For the Japanese, of course, Bettesworth was full of admiration: "fighting without food!"... He exclaimed at their pluck and their prowess. Gradually his own memories of war were awaking, and at last, "The purtiest little soldiers I ever see was the Sardinians." He described their smartness; their pretty tight-fitting uniform. "They camped 'longside o' we." Of their language "you could get to pick out a good many words" (I think he meant English words they used), "but it pestered 'em when they couldn't make ye understand.... But there, we was as bad.... Every nation has their own slang." The funniest Bettesworth ever heard was that of the Turks, "like a lot o' geese.... I remember once a lot of 'em come up over the hill by our camp, with about four hundred prisoners. They didn't let us have 'em, but was takin' 'em on to their own camp; but they was so proud for us to see, an' they was caperin' and cuttin' and dancin' about, jest like a lot o' geese." Something reminded him of George Bryant and his present job; something else, of his own coal supply, now removed to Jack's; and that brought up the coal merchant's receipt, which he had found in his waistcoat pocket. He had given it to Liz, with his wife's little box full of receipts for coal, groceries, tea, and so on, and had recommended Liz to "put 'em on the fire." "You _be_ a careless old feller!" Liz retorted, and he repeated, laughing.