But it was his dream, not mine. And I have been wondering whether, if I dreamed also, the distant future might not seem equally unendurable to me? ENLARGEMENT When he heard the first signal, warning the people of London to take cover, his spirit revolted. He began to picture with a sick disgust the scene of his coming confinement in the dirty basement. Mrs. Gibson, his landlady, would welcome him with the air of forced cheerfulness he knew so well. She would make the same remarks about the noise of the guns. She would say again: “Well, there’s one thing, it drowns the noise of the bombs--if they’ve really got here this time.” Then Maunders from the first floor would say that you could always pick out the sound of the aerial torpedoes; and explain, elaborately, why. Mrs. Graham from the second floor would say that she’d rather enjoy it, if it weren’t for the children. And her eldest little prig of a boy would say, “I’m not afraid, mumma,” and expect everyone to praise his courage. Mrs. Gibson would praise him, of course. She would say: “There, now, I declare he’s the bravest of anyone.” She was obliged to do it. She would never be able to get new lodgers this winter. And when that preliminary talk was done with, they would all begin again on the endlessly tedious topic of reprisals; and keep it up until a pause in the barrage set them on to spasmodic ejaculations of wonder whether “they” had been driven off, or gone, or been shot down, or.... No; definitely, he would not stand it. He could better endure the simultaneous explosion of every gun in London than three hours of that conversation. Moreover, he could not face the horrible drip, drip, from the scullery sink. On the night of the last raid he had been very near the sink. And the thought of that steady plop ... plop ... of water into the galley-pot Mrs. Gibson kept under the tap for some idiotic reason, was as the thought of an inferno such as could not have been conceived by Dante, nor organised by the Higher German Command. Nerves? He shrugged his shoulders. In a sense, no doubt. Suspense, dread, a long exasperation of waiting had filled every commonplace experience--more particularly that dreadful dripping of the cold water tap--with all kinds of horrible associations. But if it was “nerves,” it was not nervousness, not fear of being killed, nothing in the least like panic. He was quite willing to face the possible danger of the open streets. But he could not and would not face Mrs. Gibson and the scullery sink. No; he must escape--a fugitive from protection. Men had fled from strange things, but had they ever fled from a stranger thing than refuge? He must go secretly. If Mrs. Gibson heard him she would stop him, begin an immense, unendurable argument. She could not afford to risk the loss of a lodger this winter. She would bring Maunders and Mrs. Graham to join her in persuasion and protest. Freedom was hard to win in London, in such times as these.