“This is his first leave since he went to France, and he thought he must come to see the firm first of all.  Sad about poor old Parkins, wasn’t it?  Killed directly.  And Smithers’ leg—­that was bad too.  Rum to see such a lot of girls all over the place, doing the boys’ jobs.  Well, well, it’s a strange world, and who would have thought all this was going to happen?...”

Such is his conversation on the carpet.  In the great clerks’ room, where there are now so many girls, he is a shade more of a dog.  The brave, you know, can’t be wholly unconscious of the fair, and as I pass through I catch the same words, but spoken with a slightly more heroic ring.

“Lord, yes, you get used even to going over the top.  A rotten feeling the first time, but you get used to it.  That’s one of the rum things about war, it teaches you what you can get used to.  You get apathetic, you know.  That’s the word—­apathetic:  used to anything.  Standing for hours in water up to your knees.  Sleeping among rats.” (Here some pretty feminine squeals.) “It is a fact,” he swears to them.  “Rats running over you half the night, and now and then a shell bursting close by.”

Standing at his own old desk as he talks, he looks even taller and stronger than before—­by way of contrast, I suppose, and as I pass out I wonder if he will ever be able to bring himself to resume it.

Having occasion, a little while later, to go downstairs among the warehousemen, where female labour has not yet penetrated.  I hear him again, and notice that his language has become more free.  Safely underground he extends himself a little.

“Over the top?” he is saying.  “Yes, three blinking times.  What does it feel like the first time?  Well—­” and he tells them how it feels, in a way that I can’t reproduce here, but vivid as lightning compared with his upstairs manner.  And still he remains the clean forthright youth who sees his duty a dead sure thing, and does it, even though he may be perplexed now and then.

“So long!” they say, old men-friends and new girl-acquaintances crowding round him as at last he tears himself away (and watching him from the distance I am inclined to think that, if he gets through, he will come back to us after all).  “So long!” they say.  “Take care of yourself.”

“You bet!” he replies.  “But the question is, Shall I be allowed to?  What price the Hun?” And with a “So long, all!” he is gone.

All over London, in the big towns all over Great Britain, are these triumphant progresses going on.

* * * * *

  “Wanted, a good Private Wash; good drying
  place.”—­High Peak News.

We respect the advertiser’s dislike of publicity.

* * * * *

“JONG.”

    (Lines suggested by an Australian aboriginal
    place-name commonly known by its last syllable.)

  Fine names are found upon the map—­
    Kanturk and Chirk and Cong,
  Grogtown and Giggleswick and Shap,
    Chowbent and Chittagong;
  But other places, less renowned,
  In richer euphony abound
    Than the familiar throng;
  For instance, there is Beeyah-byyah-bunniga-nelliga-jong.