Private Cornelius Gosling-Green, M.P., had never looked really impressive even on the public platform in over-long frock-coat and turned-down collar.  In ill-fitting khaki, ammunition boots, a helmet many sizes too big, and badly-wound putties, he looked an extremely absurd object.  Private Augustus Grobble looked a little more convincing, inasmuch as his fattish figure filled his uniform, but the habit of wearing his helmet on the back of his neck and a general congenital unmilitariness of habit and bearing, operated against success.

Two unhappier men rarely stood back to back upon a lonely, windy hill-top.  Both were very hungry, very sleepy and very cold, both were essentially men of peace, and both had powerful imaginations—­especially of horrors happening to their cherished selves.

Both were dealers in words; neither was conversant with things, facts, deeds, and all that lay outside their inexpressibly artificial and specialized little spheres.  Each had been “educated” out of physical manliness, self-reliance, courage, practical usefulness, adaptability, “grit” and the plain virile virtues.

Cornelius burned with a peevish indignation that he, writer of innumerable pamphlets, speaker at innumerable meetings, organizer of innumerable societies, compiler of innumerable statistics, author of innumerable letters to the press, he, husband of the famous suffragist worker, speaker, organizer and leader, Superiora Gosling-Green (a Pounding-Pobble of the Pounding-Pobbles of Putney), that he, Cornelius Gosling-Green, Esq., M.P., should be stuck there like a common soldier, with a heavy and dangerous gun and a nasty sharp-pointed bayonet, to stand and shiver while others slept.  To stand, too, in a horribly dangerous situation ... he had a good mind to resign in protest, to take his stand upon his inalienable rights as a free Englishman.  Who should dare to coerce a Gosling-Green, Member of Parliament, of the Fabian Society, and a hundred other “bodies”.  His Superiora did all the coercing he wanted and more too.  He would enter a formal protest and tender his resignation.  He had always, hitherto, been able to protest and resign when things did not go as he wished.

He yawned, and again.

“I can see as well sitting or kneeling as I can standing,” he remarked to Private Augustus Grobble.

“It is a great physiological truth,” replied Augustus, and they both sat down, leaning against each other for warmth and support, back to back.

The soul of Augustus was filled with a melancholy sadness and a gentle woe.  To think that he, the loved of many beautiful Wimmin should be suffering such hardships and running such risks.  How his face was falling in and how the wrinkles were gathering round his eyes.  Some of the beautiful and frail, of whom he thought when he gave his usual toast after dinner, “To the Wimmin who have loved me,” would hardly recognize the fair boy over whom they