JOHN. _The Echo_? I don't know what to think. You see, we don't read newspapers much at school. Some of the masters do. And a few chaps in the Fifth--swank, of course. But speaking generally we don't. Prefects don't. No time. TRANTO. How strange! Aren't you interested in the war? JOHN. Interested in the war! Would you mind if I spoke plainly? TRANTO. I should love it. JOHN. Each time I come home I wonder more and more whether you people in London have got the slightest notion what war really is. Fact! At school, it's just because we _are_ interested in the war that we've no time for newspapers. TRANTO. How's that? JOHN. How's that? Well, munition workshops--with government inspectors tumbling all over us about once a week. O.T.C. work. Field days. Cramming fellows for Sandhurst. Not to mention female masters. 'Mistresses,' I ought to say, perhaps. All these things take time. TRANTO. I never thought of that. JOHN. No. People don't. However, I've decided to read newspapers in future--it'll be part of my scheme. That's why I was reading _The Echo_. Now, I should like to ask you something about this paper of yours. TRANTO. Yes. JOHN. Why do you let Hilda write those articles for you about food economy stunts in the household? TRANTO. Well--(_hesitating_) JOHN. Now, I look at things practically. When Hilda'd spent all her dress allowance and got into debt besides, about a year and a half ago, she suddenly remembered she wasn't doing much to help the war, and so she went into the Food Ministry as a typist at thirty-five shillings a week. Next she learnt typing. Then she became an authority on everything. And now she's concocting these food articles for you. Believe me, the girl knows nothing whatever about cookery. She couldn't fry a sausage for nuts. Once the mater insisted on her doing the housekeeping--in the holidays, too! Stay me with flagons! HILDEGARDE (_without looking round_). Stay you with chocolates, you mean, Johnnie, dear. JOHN. There you are! Her thoughts fly instantly to chocolates--and in the fourth year of the greatest war that the world-- HILDEGARDE. Etcetera, etcetera. TRANTO. Then do I gather that you don't entirely approve of your sister's articles? JOHN. Tripe, I think. My fag could write better. I'll tell you what I do approve of. I approve of that article to-day by that chap Sampson Straight about titles and the shameful traffic in honours, and the rot of the hereditary principle, and all that sort of thing. TRANTO. I'm glad. Delivers the goods, doesn't he, Mr. Sampson Straight? JOHN. Well, _I_ think so. Who is he? TRANTO. One of my discoveries, John. He sent me in an article about--let me see, when was it?--about eight months ago. I at once perceived that in Mr. Sampson Straight I had got on to a bit of all right. And I was not mistaken. He has given London beans pretty regularly once a week ever since. JOHN. He must have given the War Cabinet neuralgia this afternoon, anyhow. I should like to meet him.