MRS. TORRANCE. ‘Oh, John! Do turn round, Rogie. I never did--I never did!’ EMMA. ‘Isn’t he a pet!’ ROGER. ‘Shut up, Emma.’ MRS. TORRANCE, challenging the world, ‘Though I say it who shouldn’t--and yet, why shouldn’t I?’ MR. TORRANCE. ‘In any case you will--so go ahead, “mater.”’ MRS. TORRANCE. ‘I knew he would look splendid; but I--of course I couldn’t know that he would look quite so splendid as this.’ ROGER. ‘I know I look a bally ass. That is why I was such a time in coming down.’ MR. TORRANCE. ‘We thought we heard you upstairs strutting about.’ MRS. TORRANCE. ‘John! Don’t mind him, Rogie.’ ROGER, haughtily, ‘I don’t.’ MR. TORRANCE. ‘Oh!’ ROGER. ‘But I wasn’t strutting.’ MRS. TORRANCE. ‘That dreadful sword! No, I would prefer you not to draw it, dear--not till necessity makes you.’ MR. TORRANCE. ‘Come, come, Ellen; that’s rather hard lines on the boy. If he isn’t to draw it here, where is he to draw it?’ EMMA, with pride, ‘At the Front, father.’ MR. TORRANCE. ‘I thought they left them at home nowadays, Roger?’ ROGER. ‘Yes, mater; you see, they are a bit in the way.’ MRS. TORRANCE, foolishly, ‘Not when you have got used to them.’ MR. TORRANCE. ‘That isn’t what Roger means.’ (His son glares.) EMMA, who, though she has not formerly thought much of Roger, is now proud to trot by his side and will henceforth count the salutes, ‘I know what he means. If you carry a sword the snipers know you are an officer, and they try to pick you off.’ MRS. TORRANCE. ‘It’s no wonder they are called Huns. Fancy a British sniper doing that! Roger, you will be very careful, won’t you, in the trenches?’ ROGER. ‘Honour bright, mater.’ MRS. TORRANCE. ‘Above all, don’t look up.’ MR. TORRANCE. ‘The trenches ought to be so deep that they can’t look up.’ MRS. TORRANCE. ‘What a good idea, John.’ ROGER. ‘He’s making game of you, mater.’ MRS. TORRANCE, unruffled, ‘Is he, my own?--very likely. Now about the question of provisions----’ ROGER. ‘Oh, lummy, you talk as if I was going off to-night! I mayn’t go for months and months.’ MRS. TORRANCE. ‘I know--and, of course, there is a chance that you may not be needed at all.’ ROGER, poor boy, ‘None of that, mater.’ MRS. TORRANCE. ‘There is something I want to ask you, John--How long do you think the war is likely to last?’ Her John resumes his paper. ‘Rogie, I know you will laugh at me, but there are some things that I could not help getting for you.’ ROGER. ‘You know, you have knitted enough things already to fit up my whole platoon.’ MRS. TORRANCE, proud almost to tears, ‘His platoon.’ EMMA. ‘Have you noticed how fine all the words in -oon are? Platoon! Dragoon!’ MR. TORRANCE. ‘Spitoon!’ EMMA. ‘Colonel is good, but rather papaish; Major is nosey; Admiral of the Fleet is scrumptious, but Maréchal de France--that is the best of all.’ MRS. TORRANCE. ‘I think there is nothing so nice as 2nd Lieutenant.’ Gulping, ‘Lot of little boys.’ ROGER. ‘Mater!’