My wife was certainly ruffled, and, more than that, she was mystified.
She could not understand it at all.
"And this is the second time," she said.
"Have you questioned the servants?" I asked.
"It is not likely that my servants would amuse themselves by throwing
lumps of coal on the drawing-room carpet," she replied, "not being
lunatics. But as a matter of fact I have questioned them."
"It is the sort of thing a playful kitten might do," I suggested. "Or a
puppy perhaps."
"No, they couldn't have lifted the tongs, and the tongs were in it too,
and three walking-sticks. It must have been children, I suppose; but I
don't think there have been any children in the house."
I found her the same afternoon studying some scratched hieroglyphics on
the gravel in front of the house. It was quite an elaborate design with
squares and circles and curving lines, and with a wobbly streak running
through it. And that evening she announced once and for all that the
house was bewitched and she gave it up. She had found a loofah, two
sponges and some cakes of soap elaborately arranged in a pattern on the
bathroom floor.
She had not yet gathered, as I had, that it was Sinclair and the
Reverend Henry. I do not think that these two can have been properly
trained in their youth to put away their toys when they had finished
with them, as all tidy children should. They had no right to go out
suddenly and play tennis, leaving the drawing-room carpet in that
condition.
I had seen it coming on for some days. As soon as Henry has spent his
first half-hour on the newspapers he is ripe to explain in detail the
exact disposition of the Allied forces and "what they are evidently
driving at." And the thing is getting very complicated. He cannot make
you understand. He tries to draw maps on the back of envelopes, but his
drawing is pitiable, and then naturally he reaches out at any object
that happens to be lying on the table, planks it down for Paris or
Verdun, and gets seriously to work. He and Sinclair were sitting before
the unlit fire in the drawing-room when Sinclair put forth his brilliant
hypothesis about a flanking movement on VON KLÜCK'S right. Henry was
quite certain it was wrong. He was down on his knees in a moment
grabbing pieces of coal.
"Look here," he said. "There's Châlons; and that shovel is Soissons. You
must not forget that the Ardennes lie in behind here"--realistically
represented by a heap of logs from the wood-basket--"and that is the
Meuse. Of course it isn't quite so straight as that really"--he put the
poker in position--"but that is the line of it. Very well. Can't you see
that what he is at is to nip this force here between two fires? By Jove,
the tongs will do splendidly for that. Might have been made for it. So.
Well, if JOFFRE is any good--Stop a bit"--he filled both hands with
coal--"move your chair back. There, that's Paris, and the edge of the
fender is the Marne. Well, if JOFFRE is not asleep his game is
obviously----"
"Stop a bit," said Sinclair. "You've left out the CROWN PRINCE."
"No, I haven't. That's him there in the work-basket. And you must
remember that there are Uhlans all over the place." (I think that it
must have been the Uhlans that chiefly exacerbated my wife when she came
to clear up. They did reach pretty far afield, and there was quite a lot
of them under the sofa.) "This is the Allied front"--Sinclair had
brought him several walking-sticks by this time. "Now suppose we were to
swing round like this--I say, do move your chair. Like this. Confound
it, I didn't notice that little table was in the way. Why do people put
silly little vases of flowers on tables? Mop it up, will you? Of course
FRENCH is here. You must keep your eye on FRENCH. But----"
"What about these lines of communication?"
Henry paused. "Well, there's always the Belgians. I'm afraid we'll have
to move the piano. Just give it a heave at the other end, will you?
That'll do. Those pianola records are just the thing. No, not so near
together. So. Now you see how it works. The whole thing from here to
here moves sideways."
"Stop a bit," says Sinclair. "You're moving Paris sideways. Whatever
they may do to it when it falls--if it ever does--I don't think they'll
move it sideways."
Now that the Reverend Henry is no longer permitted to play with coals in
the drawing-room or make maps on the gravel he has found an outlet on
the breakfast-table. But he is not allowed to start till after the meal
is over, ever since he got down early one morning and had the whole
place laid out in army corps and fortresses, with a horrid tangle of
knives and forks, cruet-stands, rolls, egg-cups, plates and coffee-pots,
at the point where the main action was going on in the centre.
But he is not at all satisfied with the breakfast-table. He has to crowd
things terribly close together at one end in order to have room for the
Eastern theatre; and Posen (a toast-rack) keeps falling off the edge.
* * * * *
_The Kirkintilloch Herald_ describes the manoeuvres of a submarine
thus:--
"Without its presence being detected, it approached within a few
hundred yards of a German Dreadnought, at which it discharged two
torpedoes. In order to escape attack the submarine was then obliged
to sing."