Gedge was a smug, socialistic, pacifist builder who did not hold with war--and with this one least of all, which he maintained was being waged for the exclusive benefit of the capitalist classes. In the eyes of the stalwarts of Wellingsford, he was a horrible fellow, capable of any stratagem or treason. Perkins flushed. "I've always voted conservative, like my father before me, Sir Anthony, and like yourself I've given my boy to my country. I've no dealings with unpatriotic people like Gedge, as you know very well." "Of course I do," cried Sir Anthony. "And that's why I ask you what the devil you mean by calling England an abstraction. For us, she's the only thing in the world. We're elderly chaps, you and I, Perkins, and the only thing we can do to help her is to keep our heads high. If people like you and me crumple up, the British Empire will crumple up." "That's quite true," said Perkins. Sir Anthony bent down and held out his hand. "It's damned hard lines for us, and for the women. But we must keep our end up. It's doing our bit." Perkins wrung his hand. "I wish to God," said he, "I was young enough--" "By God! so do I!" said Sir Anthony. This little conversation (which I afterwards verified) was reported to me by my arch-gossip, Sergeant Marigold. "And I tell you what, sir," said he after the conclusion, "I'm of the same way of thinking and feeling." "So am I." "Besides, I'm not so old, sir. I'm only forty-two." "The prime of life," said I. "Then why won't they take me, sir?" If there had been no age limit and no medical examination Marigold would have re-enlisted as John Smith, on the outbreak of war, without a moment's consideration of the position of his wife and myself. And Mrs. Marigold, a soldier's wife of twenty years' standing, would have taken it, just like myself, as a matter of course. But as he could not re-enlist, he pestered the War Office (just as I did) and I pestered for him to give him military employment. And all in vain. "Why don't they take me, sir? When I see these fellows with three stripes on their arms, and looking at them and wondering at them as if they were struck three stripes by lightning, and calling themselves Sergeants and swanking about and letting their men waddle up to their gun like cows--and when I see them, as I've done with your eyes--watch one of their men pass by an officer in the street without saluting, and don't kick the blighter to--to--to barracks--it fairly makes me sick. And I ask myself, sir, what I've done that I should be loafing here instead of serving my country." "You've somehow mislaid an eye and a hand and gone and got a tin head. That's what you've done," said I. "And the War Office has a mark against you as a damned careless fellow." "Tin head or no tin head," he grumbled, "I could teach those mother's darlings up there the difference between a battery of artillery and a skittle-ally." "I believe you've mentioned the matter to them already," I observed softly.