Peter did not take long to recognize the peculiar social atmosphere. It was merely glorified Eton. Everybody trying their best to assume that facts didn’t exist; that emotions didn’t exist; that they knew little and cared less about the job they had at heart. It was over twelve years since Peter had lived in that particular atmosphere: but he sniffed it gratefully. His voice changed to it. He said, “Oh, really. Well, of course, _I_ don’t know much about Gunnery,” knowing perfectly well that he knew considerably more about it than Sandiland—and, “It’s been very quiet round the batteries”—feeling that nobody had ever been quite so heavily shelled as the Fourth Southdown Brigade. The Weasel, who happened to have been at Winchester before going on to Woolwich, felt suddenly and immensely superior to everybody on earth. For, on that point, all old English “public-school” men feel alike: which is what makes them at times so insufferable to outsiders. If a foreigner had asked any of the men in that cellar _why_ he was fighting, the foreigner would have met with an incredulous lift of the eyebrow: that particular lift of the eyebrow which no foreigner understands; but which conveys—to one who can interpret—“My dear fellow, I was at Eton” (or Winchester, or Haileybury, or Harrow, or Radley or a hundred other foundations of that classical tradition which literary pacifists despise) “and _one does, don’t you know, one just does_.” Luckily, there is no “education” at English “public-schools.” They merely train boys to be _men_. § 4 The Infantry Brigadier, arriving about mid-day, declared to his Brigade-Major: “My dear fellow, the whole countryside looks like Hampstead Heath. Have some one go out and clean it up, please. I really can’t have men wandering about _all_ over the skyline.” The Brigade Major, strolling across the room, said: “I say, Bunny, I wish you’d take a peep round and see what we’re to do about these fellows wandering about on the skyline.” Bunny disappeared and did not return till after lunch. Nobody in all that farm seemed in the least degree excited about anything. Work was not _done—it proceeded_. Stark and Peter, returning to the outer air, watched the procedure. By now, their own communication orderlies, servants and telephonists had arrived. It began to rain, vaguely, unpleasantly. . . . At one minute to two, a limousine, mud-spattered from roof to axle, tore down the road; pulled up slithering before the gateway. From the car, sprang a tall aquiline eye-glassed man; who said, “Hello, Stark. Sorry to be late. Look here”; drew a very dirty map from his pocket; and swept one finger over a blue semi-circle of it. Stark, drawing an identical map from his pocket, copied the semi-circle; asked: “Any particular instructions?”