Conscription began to dislocate small trades and industries, but Nether-Applewhite hardly felt the pinch of this. A few of the young women disappeared, seeking higher wages in munition-works. One or two returned to the village wearing coney-seal coats, and peacocking into church with bold eyes challenging attention from wounded heroes. Mrs. Yellam was much exasperated. All strikes she regarded as sinful. Satan, and his dark legions, had been the first to rebel against Authority. Hence--Hell! She envisaged as Hell industrial England, with its blast-furnaces vomiting flames and smoke day and night, with its black hordes of angry strikers disgracefully overpaid in comparison with the pittance doled out to Sergeant Yellam. Coney-seal coats "dirtied" her mind. Many of them, no doubt, were the obvious wages of sin. She rebuked Alfred severely, when he proposed to buy one for Fancy. Alfred defended himself and the wearers of the coats. "It's one of the signs of the times, Mother. I thought you were an 'Onward' one." "Lard help us! Not 'Onward and downward.'" "It's all the result of the war," affirmed Alfred. "Money's scarcer amongst the quality, but poor folks are richer. Why shouldn't our girls have a good time? They're working hard for the country." Mrs. Yellam retorted viciously: "Being a man, wi' an eye for a pretty face, you sticks up for the girls. But what about they miners, a-smoking silling cigars and a-drinking champagne, when our boys are dying at one-and-tuppence a day? And some o' they strikers, so they tells me, 'd as lief live under Kayser Bill as under King Garge." "Is that their fault, Mother?" "What do you say? Gracious! Be you telling me that such wickedness be _my_ fault?" Alfred smiled pleasantly. He was not entitled to full credit for his answer; he had been talking upon the subject with Lionel Pomfret. "It's the fault of the quality, Mother." "What a tale!"