“I did notice it.  Go on.”

“Well, this poor chap’s hand stuck out, just about four feet from the floor of the trench.  My dug-out was only a few yards away, and I never saw a member of my platoon go past that spot without shaking the hand and saying, Good-morning, Alphonse!’ I had it built up with sandbags ultimately, and they were quite annoyed!”

“They have some grisly notions about life and death,” agreed Wagstaffe, “but they are extraordinarily kind to people in trouble, such as wounded men, or prisoners.  You can’t better them.”

“And now there are five millions of them.  We are all in it, at last!”

“We certainly are—­men and women.  I’m afraid I had hardly realised what our women were doing for us.  Being on service all the time, one rather overlooks what is going on at home.  But stopping a bullet puts one in the way of a good deal of inside information on that score.”

“You mean hospital work, and so on?”

“Yes.  One meets a lot of wonderful people that way!  Sisters, and ward-maids, and V.A.D.’s—­”

“I love all V.A.D.’s!” said Bobby, unexpectedly.

“Why, my youthful Mormon?”

“Because they are the people who do all the hard work and get no limelight—­like—­like—!”

“Like Second Lieutenants—­eh?”

“Yes, that is the idea.  They have a pretty hard time, you know,” continued Bobby confidentially:  “And nothing heroic, either.  Giving up all the fun that a girl is entitled to; washing dishes; answering the door-bell; running up and downstairs; eating rotten food.  That’s the sort of—­”

“What is her name?” enquired the accusing voice of Major Wagstaffe.  Then, without waiting to extort an answer from the embarrassed Bobby:—­

“You are quite right.  This war has certainly brought out the best in our women.  The South African War brought out the worst.  My goodness, you should have seen the Mount Nelson Hotel at Capetown in those days!  But they have been wonderful this time—­wonderful.  I love them all—­the bus-conductors, the ticket-punchers, the lift-girls—­one of them nearly shot me right through the roof of Harrod’s the other day—­and the window-cleaners and the page-girls and the railway-portresses!  I divide my elderly heart among them.  And I met a bunch of munition girls the other day, Bobby, coming home from work.  They were all young, and most of them were pretty.  Their faces and hands were stained a bright orange-colour with picric acid, and will be, I suppose, until the Boche is booted back into his stye.  In other words, they had deliberately sacrificed their good looks for the duration of the war.  That takes a bit of doing, I know, innocent bachelor though I am.  But bless you, they weren’t worrying.  They waved their orange-coloured hands to me, and pointed to their orange-coloured faces, and laughed.  They were proud of them; they were doing their bit.  They nearly made me cry, Bobby.  Yes, we are all in it now; and those of us who come out of it are going to find this old island of ours a wonderfully changed place to live in.”