"'Well, after I had spent an hour this morning distributing whiffy oil-lamps all over the house, I went again to the coal merchant. He froze me with a look. 'When can you send in my coal?' I tried to say it jauntily, but my teeth chattered. 'Have you _no_ coal?' he said, and his frigid eye pierced me. 'O-o-only a little dust, which, has been at the bottom of the cellar for two years--drawing-room coal dust,' I added eagerly, 'which cannot be used on the kitchen fire.' 'You are lucky,' he said, 'to have that. There are thousands of people in this town with no coal at all. We can promise you nothing.' "I came home, and after luncheon, donning my Red Cross uniform, I told Mary that if people called she could show them into the coal-cellar, where I should be; and, armed with a garden-fork, I proceeded thither and dug diligently for a whole hour. I know now exactly why a hen clucks when she has laid an egg. Every time I found a lump--and I found as many as six--I simply had to call Cook and Mary to come and see." "What fun!" murmured Frederic comfortably. "I venture to suggest, dear, that the thing is beyond a joke. When I next go to the coal-monger's I shall say in reply to the inevitable question, 'A little coal-dust in the cellar and a good deal on the chairs and tables and on my hands and face;' and I know he will say: 'You are lucky to have even that. There are millions in this town who, etc., etc.' And so the thing will go on until one day he asks, 'Have you no fuel at all?' when I can hear myself replying, 'Only two chairs and one wardrobe,' and he will reply icily, 'You are lucky to have that. Everybody else is dead because they had not even that.' "And Frederic," I added abruptly, "as a coal-miner I demand the minimum wage for my day--your hot bath to-morrow morning." * * * * * [Illustration: A MORNING IN THE HOME LIFE OF AN EMOTIONAL ACTRESS.] * * * * * [Illustration: "MY DEAR, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO THE LINKS TO-DAY?" "OH, YES, AUNTIE. I SHALL TRY AND PUT IN A ROUND." "BUT IT'S _POURING_! WHY, I WOULDN'T SEND A DOG OUT TO GOLF IN SUCH WEATHER."] * * * * * DEMOBILISATION. THE SITUATION MADE CLEAR. "It is quite clear," said the Adjutant, "that Second-Lieut. X must stay." "Of course," said the G.O.C. Demobs, or, as he is more often called, "Mobbles." "He stays because he doesn't go." "Yes," said the Adjutant's child full, like the elephant's child, of insatiable curiosity, "X stays because he is retained for selection until he is selected for retention, or, to put it more clearly, he belongs to a class which could go if it had any reason for going and if it wanted to go and wasn't retained as eligible or wasn't eligible for retention. In other words he is in one of the two classes--those who are available to go and those who are eligible to stay."