Anyhow, as to height, Frank knew himself to be of a height acceptable in benefices, and that was something.  Besides, it was his own height.

‘Sorry I can’t change to oblige you, old man,’ he said.  ’Or desert my post and pretend to be a layman.  I am a man under authority, like you.  I wish the powers that be would send me out there, but it’s for them to judge, and if they think I should be of less use as a padre than all the Toms, Dicks, and Harrys they are sending, it’s not for me to protest.  They may be right.  I may be absolutely useless as a chaplain.  On the other hand, I may not.  They apparently don’t intend to give themselves a chance of finding out.  Very well.  It’s nothing to me, either way.’

‘Oh, that’s all right then,’ Johnny said.

4

No one could say that the Potter press did not rise to the great opportunity.  The press seldom fails to do this.  The Potter press surpassed itself; it nearly surpassed its great rival presses.  With energy and whole-heartedness it cheered, comforted, and stimulated the people.  It never failed to say how well the Allies were getting on, how much ammunition they had, how many men, what indomitable tenacity and cheerful spirits enlivened the trenches.  The correspondents it employed wrote home rejoicing; its leading articles were noble hymns of praise.  In times of darkness and travail one cannot but be glad of such a press as this.  So glad were the Government of it that Mr. Potter became, at the end of 1916, Lord Pinkerton, and his press the Pinkerton press.  Of course, that was not the only reward he obtained for his services; he figured every new year in the honours’ list, and collected in succession most of the letters of the alphabet after his name.  With it all, he remained the same alert, bird-like, inconspicuous person, with the same unswerving belief in his own methods and his own destinies, a belief which never passed from self-confidence to self-importance.  Unless you were so determined a hater of Potterism as to be blindly prejudiced, you could not help liking Lord Pinkerton.

5

Jane, sulking because she could not fight, thought for a short time that she would nurse, and get abroad that way.  Then it became obvious that too many fools were scrambling to get sent abroad, and anyhow, that, if Clare was nursing, it must be a mug’s game, and that there must be a better field for her own energies elsewhere.  With so many men going, there would be empty places to fill....  That thought came, perhaps, as soon to Jane as to any one in the country.

Her father’s lady secretary went nursing, and Lord Pinkerton, well aware of his younger daughter’s clearheaded competence, offered Jane the job, at a larger salary.