And so she did, and found that Mrs.  ’Ero Edwards had been wanting to see her to tell her that the war would be over in June, and that the Edwards’s nephew knew on the best authority that the Kaser couldn’t get no kipper to his breakfast any more because Preserdink Wilson was a-holding of them up upon the high seas, and that Jimmy Wragge was “wanted” for “helping himself,” and that young Dusty Morgan, the lodger, had gone for a soldier, and his wife had taken his job as driver of a van.

“There’s only two jobs now,” said Mrs.  ’Ero Edwards, “wot you never see a woman doin’, and one’s a burglar, an’ the other’s a scarecrow.”

Jay said, “The lady burglars would be so clever they’d never get into the papers, and the lady scarecrows would be so attractive that they’d fascinate the birds.”

And then Mrs.  ’Ero Edwards considered what she would say to an ’Un if she had him here, and Jay was called upon to provide ’Unnish replies in the ’Unnish lingo.  Her German was so patriotically rusty that she could think of no better retorts than “Nicht hinauslehnen,” or “Bitte nicht zu rauchen,” or “Heisses Wasser, bitte,” or “Wacht am Rhein,” or “Streng verboten.”  Yet the dramatic effect of the interview was very good indeed, and Mrs.  ’Ero Edwards’s arguments were unanswerable in any tongue.

And then they thought they would make a surprise for young Mrs. Dusty Morgan, the lodger, against she come back from work, because she was that down’earted.  So they went and bought some ribbon to tie up the curtains, and some flowers for the table, and put the chairs in happy and new attitudes of expectancy, and cleaned the windows, putting a piece of white paper on the broken pane instead of the rag, which was rather weary of its job.  And then Mrs.  ’Ero Edwards confided to Jay that young Mrs. Dusty wanted very much to find the picture of a real tip-top soldier, so that she might look at it and remember how this business was going to make a man of young Dusty.  And Jay went all the way to the City and could find no picture of a tip-top soldier, and then she came back to the Brown Borough, and because of the intervention of Providence, found Albrecht Duerer’s “St. George” second-hand in a Jew-shop.  And they hung it up over the mantelpiece, and decided that it was rather like Dusty, if it wasn’t for the uniform.  And the general effect was so superb that Jay nearly spoilt it all by jumping a hole in the floor, so as to jog Time’s elbow and bring Mrs. Dusty home quickly to see it all.  It was a very delicate floor.  Jay always jumped when she was impatient.  She did everything with double fervour, and where you or I would have stamped one foot, she stamped two at once.

Mrs. Dusty Morgan came back a little bit drunk.  When she saw the Saint over the mantelpiece she cried, and blasted the war that made it necessary to wear them ... respirators all over (the Saint is in armour),—­and when she saw the flowers, she laughed, and said it seemed like Nothing-on-Earth to have Dusty away.