"But I know some very charming M.P.'s--are they all politicians?"
"Oh no, sir. They're different. It's a question of standards, really."
"Ah, but what are the standards?"
"Well, you see--we have one--and civilians have another, business
people and so on, and then there's the politicians."
"You ought to write a dictionary, Pongo--you snub-nosed old shell-back.
No, I ain't scrapping, and if you get up I'll take your chair."
"Whose got a cigarette? No, not one of your stinkers--gimme one of
yours, Guns."
The officer addressed politely passed a cigarette across in his
fingers, and turning in his chair beckoned to a marine servant who was
just returning with an empty tray from the Bridge table.
"A cigarette, please, waiter--and debit it to the account of my
honourable friend Mr Maugham, here. I'll stop your cadging, Pongo--if
I have to take on the tobacco accounts to do it."
"Lucky there's no shortage of 'baccy, or all the armies would strike."
"Well, that'd be one way to stop the war. You can't fight without it.
Wish we had some tobacco shares. Some people must be making a lot."
"Not so much as the food people."
"I don't believe the food people do make so much. It's the world
shortage that causes the trouble, not the prices--or rather one
involves the other."
"It isn't so much that. It's a rise of prices all round. Things get
expensive, so the country strikes for higher wages and gets
them--then prices go up because the sovereign has depreciated, and
they strike again. It goes on in a vicious circle."
"Can't be a circle--because that's progression. You've got to get to a
smash in time."
"Yes, it means there'll be just as much cash in the world, but every
one will be poor. Cash isn't wealth--work is wealth, and all work
nowadays is wasted. We're chucking it into the air in Flanders."
"Well, we'll last out this war, and then have to lash out."
"Oh yes--there'll be room to lash out in, too. We'll be back in
Elizabeth's days--lots of room for every one, but no capital."
"So long as there are no Huns we'll be happy, so what's the odds? Give
us a match."
"Well, I want a few Huns left to compare notes with after this. It
would be dull to hear our own side only. One couldn't meet their Army,
of course, but their Navy's not so bad. They've tried to fight clean,
at any rate, and they fight good and 'earty. Yes, I know about Fritz,
but if you had orders to torpedo liners, wouldn't you do it? 'Course
you would, if you were told they were carrying munitions and you were
saving your country by it. There are Fritzes who _like_ it, certainly,
but we have to give the others the benefit of the doubt."
"Well, I'd like to read their logs and so on after the war, though
we'll be so damn sick of all the truck they'll publish here when the
Censor pays off that we wont want to read much of anything."
"It isn't the stuff just after the war one would like to read. I'd
like to be alive in a hundred years to read the truth."
"Well, you wont be if you knock my drink over with your hairy
hoofs--sit still!"
"It'd do you good if I did knock it over--your hoary-headed old rip.
Guns, do you think they'll have raised our pay in a hundred years'
time?"
"I doubt it. They'll pay off the Navy and economise as soon as peace
is signed--"
"--And we'll have another war on our hands inside six months--we
always do; we've always retrenched after a war, and then had to give
bonuses to get the men back inside a year."
"Well, they'll pay off the battleships, anyway--and only keep the fast
cruisers and the submarines."
"You and your submarines! Have you heard from your brother lately?"
"Yes, he tells me if I'm going to join I've got to remember it's the
greatest honour to be--half a sec., I've got the letter here--to be
alive and able to get into the greatest and most efficient Service of
the Greatest Navy the world has ever seen, in the Greatest event in
History since the Moon broke off."
There was a two seconds' silence (which is long for a Naval
discussion), then--
"Well, cutting out the swollen-headed tosh about the Greatest Service,
which I take it he means to refer to submarines, I don't know that
he's far wrong."
"Well, I suppose we shall have our pasts and presents all looked up,
and that people at the U.S. Institution will argue about us like they
did a few years ago about Trafalgar."
"No fear. They'll all be peaceful then, and we'll be barbarians, and
not to be spoken of."
"Barbarian, my foot! We're the cleanest lot in England, and the
English are cleaner than most races."
"Do you think there'll be another battle?"
"Oh, help! If that cag's going to start, I'm off. Good-night, sir."
"I must go too, Jim," said the guest, with a startled glance at the
clock. "Where did I leave my coat?"
The Senior Engineer rose and followed them out, hearing as he passed
through the door an unwearying voice by the stove--"I know a chap on
Beatty's staff, and he says they'll fight next spring or summer."