_Tickle._ Ha, so I thought. But all the French players have been put on their guard; and there isn’t one of ’em will go near the Draymatic Authors’ Society without two policemen. _Pucker._ Well, I’m not partic’lar; but really, gen’l’men, to talk in this way about plays and players, on a Sunday morning too, is a shocking waste of human life. I was about to say---- _Nutts._ Clean as a whistle, Mr Slowgoe. Mr Tickle, now for you. (_=Tickle= takes the chair._) _Pucker._ I was about to say, it’s nice encouragement to go a-soldiering--this flogging at Hounslow. _Nutts._ Yes, it’s glory turned a little inside out. For my part, I shall never see the ribbands in the hat of a recruiting soldier again--the bright blue and red--that I shan’t think of the weals and cuts in poor White’s back. _Pucker._ Or his broken heart-strings. _Nutts._ What a very fine thing a soldier is, isn’t he? See him in all his feathers, and with his sword at his side, a sword to cut laurels with--and in my ’pinion, all the laurels in the world was never worth a bunch of wholesome watercresses. See him, I say, dressed and pipeclayed and polished, and turned out as if a soldier was far above a working man, as a working man’s above his dog--see him in all his parade furbelows, and what a splendid cretur he is, isn’t he? How stupid ’prentices gape at him, and feel their foolish hearts thump at the drum parchment, as if it was played upon by an angel out of heaven! And how their blood--if it was as poor as London milk before--burns in their bodies, and they feel for the time--and all for glory--as if they could kill their own brothers! And how the women---- _Female voice._ (_From the back._) What are you talking about the women, Mr Nutts? Better go on with your shaving, like a husband and a father of a family, and leave the women to themselves. _Nutts._ Yes, my dear. (_Confidentially._) You know my wife? Strong-minded cretur. _Pucker._ For my part, to say nothin’ against Mrs Nutts, I hate women of strong minds. To me they always seem as if they wanted to be men, and couldn’t. I love women as women love babies, all the better for their weakness. _Nosebag._ Go on about the sojer.