Yet--we muddled through. Men still use that word as if it were something creditable instead of hideous. We won, because, behind the Britain that muddled and obstructed, there was the Britain of noble mothers and noble sons. And into the first winter our orgy of statistics went on, like an endless Babylonian feast ... while the British fleet--which we should never need--strained and plunged in the icy gales of the North Sea, grimly, silently, saving the world for Civilization. Great days. Fateful days. Terrible days. One Friday night early in December I received a note from Norman, asking me to meet him for dinner at "Arcadia." I had not seen him for six months, but his debonair charm was as potent as ever, and we chatted of the past like friends who had not met for years. As if by mutual consent, we avoided the present until I noticed that the orchestra was different. "Where is Klotz?" I asked suddenly. "Gone." "Where?" "To the war. He was a German reservist and got away." "And his wife?" "She is confined to her bed all the time, but fortunately there is an excellent woman looking after her and young Siegfried. By the way, what a conductor he'll make some day!" By the subterfuge I knew who was paying for the woman, though his income was always slender. Stimulated by a British-born orchestra that played with a respectability beyond question, we pursued bubbles of conversation for half-an-hour, saying many clever things and arriving at no conclusions; but both of us knew that, behind the badinage, there was the consciousness of war gripping our brains like a fever. "What do you think," I said at last, "of the question of enlisting?" It would have been a mockery to deny the fever any longer. "Why should I enlist?" His smile was so disarming that I regretted my move at once. "Don't misunderstand me," I said hastily. "You are not needed, and you never will be. Besides----" My voice trailed off into the insincere platitudes that always come to the lips when conscience is to be drugged. He lit a cigarette. "Pest," he said, "most men are participants in life; a few, like myself, are onlookers. It was my choice when I was a mere youngster--wisely or not, I do not know--but the pose has become reality now. I am a jester at the court of the world, a wordy fellow with a touch of melancholy in his humor, watching and commenting on the real things of life. Before there was a war I blew bubbles, and now I am fit for nothing else. Have a cigarette?" "Thanks." He passed his hand across his brow with the same weariness I had noticed before.