"What is it?" I asked.
"Well," he said, "I'm done for, useless. You see I'm forty-six, and
that's a devil of an age just now. You're as fit as you ever were in
your life, but of course the War Office won't look at you. Forty-six is
impossible! 'But I can walk thirty miles a day,' I tell them. 'Not with
all the accoutrements,' they say. 'I'm a member of the Alpine Club,' I
tell them. 'You're over age,' they say. 'I'm stronger than any of your
twenty-year-old recruits,' I tell them. 'You're forty-six,' they say.
And it's true!"
"Then the new regiment of Sportsmen came along," he continued, "and I
tried them. No good. Forty-five is their maximum. So there you are! I'm
done--useless. No one wanted to help more than I did, and I can do
absolutely nothing."
"I'll bet you've done a lot," I said, "if you would only confess."
"I tell you I've done absolutely nothing," he repeated testily. "I'm no
use."
"But surely you're on a dozen committees?" I said.
"No," he said, "not one."
"Then you have started a Fund? Some minor fund guaranteed not to divert
any money from the big ones?"
"No."
"But of course you've written to the papers?" I went on.
"No."
"Not about anything? Not to make the Government buck up about blankets
or squashing German lies, or allowing Correspondents at the Front, or
anything like that?"
"No."
"But surely you have views as to the better management of things? The
Press Bureau, for instance. Haven't you pitched into that?"
"No."
"Not even clamoured for all Germans in this country, even the
naturalised ones, to be shot? Surely you've harried MCKENNA a bit?"
"No."
"Well, you must at least have published a scheme for the partition of
Europe after the war?"
"No; I never wrote to the papers in my life."