"Scissors, he cut me dead--he didn't even acknowledge that he heard me--but he _saw_ me--he looked right through me, and went on, leaving me like Lot's wife. I'd had a hellish time--that just finished me. A fellow can't go on fighting the world when his best friends quit him. I just went home and buried myself. I didn't write to you--or to any one; I wasn't going to risk a second incident like that. I kept in,--but--I've been in the war every minute. I've gone up and down those casualty lists, Scissors. They're all going; there's hardly any of the old set left. Fletcher's House has been wiped out--a whole bunch at Neuve Chapelle, and I'm going now. I don't believe in the damn war. It's mad, it can't bring anything but indemnities, starvation, hatred. Every day I am more convinced of the insanity--the beastly, selfish filthiness of it, with all these horrible old politicians making speeches out of it, the business man 'doing his bit,' as he calls his plundering, the fierce old women lapping up German blood like vampires. I've deserted, Scissors, I've funked the battle against it--I can't carry on this lone fight any longer. I enlisted a few months ago--been training at Salisbury and here I am, a tailored product of Scott Adie, Highland outfitters, and one of our 'darling brave lads' ready to die for his country." He laughed bitterly at the wry humour of his position. "I'm going to disembowel some mother's son I've never seen. They have been working us up to blood fury on stuffed sacks. I've learned how to draw out my bayonet with a twist, and when I've blotted out the light of life in half-a-dozen mother's hearts, a more expert pig-sticker than I am will blot out my mother's happiness. And it'll go on and on for years, till there's hardly a sane, able-bodied fellow left, and then one side will crack, and the political and financial ghouls will gather over Europe's corpse and exact terms and wave flags of victory." Marsh stood up and paced the room. "Where's the sense of it?" he cried, stretching out his hands. "What has victory to do with justice--the strongest wins!--but it doesn't follow the strongest is right!" His eyes softened. "And, Scissors, those kids in my platoon--there's not one of them eighteen yet; they're just babies and I mother 'em night and day. You know how puppies are, with clumsy paws and trusting eyes?---well, they're just like that, Scissors--and when they're--they're sent into the line--" Here his words choked him. Mrs. Perdie entered with the coffee, and with further exclamations of delight offered all kinds of service. With many thanks and refusals, John got her out of the room again, but not before she had asked to give the young gentleman a kiss, "as if I was your ain mother, bless her--and God keep you safe," she said, retreating to the door with tearful eyes. Marsh seemed better for having unburdened himself. John wanted him to have a nap, but he would not.