I have come to like the place and do most of my writing there, catching snatches of conversation and reminiscence as they float across to me.

“I wasn’t meanin’ to ’urt ole Ginger Nobby nohow, but the muck I throwed took ’im dead on the jor.  ‘Wot’s yer gime?’ ’e ’ollers at me.  ‘Wot’s my gime?’ I says back to ’im.  ‘Nuffin’, if ye want ter know!’ I says.  ‘I was just shyin’ at squidges.’”

Thus spoke the bright-eyed Cockney at the table next me, gazing regretfully at his empty coffee-cup and cutting away a fringe of rag-nails from his finger with a clasp-knife.  The time was eight o’clock of the evening, and the youth was recounting an adventure which he had had in the morning when throwing mud at sparrows on the parade ground.  A lump of clay had struck a red-haired non-commissioned officer on the jaw, and the officer became angry.  The above was the Cockney version of the story.  One of my friends, an army unit with the Oxford drawl, was voluble on another subject.

“Russian writers have had a great effect on our literature,” he said, deep in a favourite topic.  “They have stripped bare the soul of man with a realism that shrivels up our civilisation and proves—­Two coffees, please.”

A tall, well-set waitress, with several rings on her fingers, took the order as gravely as if she were performing some religious function; then she turned to the Cockney.

“Cup of cawfee, birdie!” he cried, leaning over the table and trying to grip her hand.  “Not like the last, mind; it was good water spoilt.  I’ll never come in ’ere again.”

“So you say!” said the girl, moving out of his way and laughing loudly.

“Strike me balmy if I do!”

“Where’ll yer go then?”

“Round the corner, of course,” was the answer.  “There’s another bird there—­and cawfee!  It’s some stuff too, not like ’ere.”

“All right; don’t come in again if yer don’t want ter.”

The Cockney got his second cup of coffee and pronounced it inferior to the first; then looked at an evening paper which Oxford handed to him, and studied a photograph of a battleship on the front page.

“Can’t stand these ’ere papers,” he said, after a moment, as he got to his feet and lit a cigarette.  “Nuffink but war in them always; I’m sick readin’ about war!  I saw your bit in one a couple of nights ago,” he said, turning to me.

“What did you think of it?” I asked, anxious to hear his opinion on an article dealing with the life of his own regiment.

“Nuffink much,” he answered, honestly and frankly.  “Everything you say is about things we all know; who wants to ’ear about them?  D’ye get paid for writin’ that?”

One of his mates, a youth named Bill, who came in at that moment, overheard the remark.

“Paid!  Of course ’e gets paid,” said the newcomer.  “Bet you he gets ’arf a crown for every time ’e writes for the paper.”

All sorts and conditions of soldiers drift into the place and discuss various matters over coffee and mince pies; they are men of all classes, who had been as far apart as the poles in civil life, and are now knit together in the common brotherhood of war.  Caste and estate seem to have been forgotten; all are engaged in a common business, full of similar risks, and rewarded by a similar wage.