Vane laughed. "We emerged, plucking mud from our mouths, and cursed. The Hun apparently was satisfied and stopped. The only person who wasn't satisfied was the purveyor of winkles to the Royal 'Ouse. He brooded through the day, but towards the evening he became more cheerful. "'Look 'ere,' he said to me, ''ave you ever killed a 'Un?' "'I think I did once,' I said. 'A fat man with a nasty face.' "'Oh! you 'ave, 'ave you? Well, wot abaht killing one to-night. If they thinks I'm going to stand that sort of thing, they're ---- ---- wrong.' The language was the language of Whitechapel, but the sentiments were the sentiments of even the most rabid purist of speech. "To cut a long story short, we went. And we were very lucky." "You bumped your face into 'em, did you?" asked Jim, interested. "We did. Man, it was a grand little scrap while it lasted, and it was the first one I'd had. It won't be the last." "Did you kill your men?" "Did we not? Welks brained his with the butt of his gun; and I did the trick with a bayonet." Vane became a little apologetic. "You know it was only my first, and I can't get it out of my mind." Then his eyes shone again. "To feel that steel go in--Good God! man--it was IT: it was...." Then came the interruption. "Dear," said a voice at the door, "the children are in bed; will you go up and say good night."... Thus the second incident.... * * * * * As I said, taken separately the two incidents mean but little: taken together--there is humour: the whole humour of war. An itinerant fishmonger and a worthy stockbroker are inculcated with wonderful ideals in order to fit them for sallying forth at night and killing complete strangers. And they revel in it.... The highest form of emotionalism on one hand: a hole in the ground full of bluebottles and smells on the other.... War ... war in the twentieth century. But there is nothing incompatible in it: it is only strange when analysed in cold blood. And Jim Denver, as I have said, was sane again: while Vane, the stockbroker, was still mad. In fact, it is quite possible that the peculiar significance of the interruption in his story never struck him: that he never noticed the Contrast. And what is going to be the result of it all on the Vanes of England? "Once the office filled my life." No man can go to the land of Topsy Turvy and come back the same--for good or ill it will change him. Though the madness leave him and sanity return, it will not be the same sanity. Will he ever be content to settle down again after--the lawyer, the stockbroker, the small clerk? Back to the old dull routine, the same old train in the morning, the same deadly office, the same old home each evening. It hardly applies to the Jim Denvers--the men of money: but what of the others?