"Well, you'll be wanted soon," said Bobs, and passed on. "How these men run to seed, directly they leave the service, Lewknor!" he remarked to the Colonel on the stairs. "Now I daresay that fellow was a smart upstanding man when he was with you." Ernie, thrilled at his adventure, went out into the cool night with Ruth, quietly amused at his excitement, beside him. "Didn't 'alf look, Alf didn't, when he talked to you!" chuckled Ruth. That was the main impression she had derived from the meeting, that and Lord Roberts's ears and the way they were stuck on to his head; but Ernie's mind was still in tumult. "Where's Joe then?" he cried suddenly, and turned to see his pal still standing somewhat forlorn on the steps of the Town Hall. He whistled and beckoned furiously. "Come on, Joe!" he called. "Just down to the Wish and have a look at the sea." But the engineer shook his head and turned slowly away down Grove Road. "Nay, A know when A'm not wanted," he called. "Yoong lovers like to be alone." "Sauce!" said Ruth, marching on with a little smile. Ernie rejoined her. "What d'you think of him?" he asked keenly. "O, I liked him," said Ruth, cool and a trifle mischievous. "He's like a little bird--so alife like. And that tag of white beard to his chin like a billy-goat!--I did just want to pluck it!" She tittered and then recollected herself. "I didn't mean Lord Roberts, fat-ead," retorted Ernie. "I meant Joe." "O, that chap!" answered Ruth casually. "I didn't pay much heed to him. There's a lot o nature to him, I should reckon. Most in general there is--them black chaps, bull-built, wi curly tops to em." She drifted back to Lord Roberts and the meeting. "Only all that about war!--I don't like that. Don't seem right, not to my mind. There's a plenty enough troubles seems to me without them a-shoving great wars on top o you all for love." Ernie felt that the occasion demanded a lecture and that he was pointed out as the man to give it. The chance, moreover, might not recur; and he must therefore make the most of it. He had this feeling less often perhaps than most men, and for that reason when he had it he had it strong. At the moment he was profoundly aware of the immense superiority of his sex; the political sagacity of Man; his power of taking statesmanlike views denied apparently to Woman. "And what if Germany attacks us!" he asked censoriously. "Take it laying down, I suppose!--Spread yourself on the beach and let em tread on you as they land, so they don't wet their feet!" "Germany won't interfere with you if you don't interfere with her, I reckon," Ruth answered calmly. "It's just the same as neighbours in the street. You're friends or un-friends, accordin as you like." "What about Mrs. Ticehurst?" cried Ernie, feeling victory was his for once. "You didn't interfere with her, did you? Yet she tip the dust bin a-top o little Alice over the back-wall--to show she loved you, I suppose."