iped
out the whole contingent.

As the afternoon wore on Sackville Street began to assume two totally
distinct characteristics--one of tragedy and the other of comedy. South
of the Pillar the scene might have been a battlefield; north of the
Pillar it might have been a nursery gone tipsy, for by this time all the
children of the slums had discovered that a perfect paradise of toys lay
at their absolute mercy at Lawrence's bazaar, and accordingly a pinafore
and knickerbocker army began to lay siege to it, the mothers taking
seats upon the stiffened corpses of the lancers' horses to watch the
sight of thousands of Union-jacks made into bonfires.

The scene was indescribable for chaos: there were men locked in deadly
combat for the sake of Empire and Fatherland, and here were the very
children they were fighting for--some dying for--revelling in a
children's paradise of toys--balloons, soldiers, rackets, and lollypops,
as if it had all been arranged for their special benefit.

An air-gun battalion was now formed of the young highwaymen--two guns
each, one on each shoulder--followed up by a toy anti-aircraft gun on
wheels, and the whole cavalcade brought up by a Noah's Ark the size of a
perambulator.

The captain, about eight years of age, wore a blue silk waistcoat (with
its price ticket) and a new grey silk hat. The band then formed up in
Indian file, marched up to the G.P.O., saluted majestically, and then
impertinently fired their pellets slap-bang into the faces of the
insurgents, and then broke up and ran for all they were worth.

All the while, in the opposite direction, Red War was at its height: the
rifle-fire along the quays was terrific, and ambulances were rushing
backwards and forwards and relays of Volunteers were issuing from the
central depot to the firing-line.

Probably never in the world's history had there been such a strange
combination of pathos and humour, and it will haunt everyone who saw it
to their dying day: and if mere passive spectators felt the clash of
divergent emotions how much more must these, for all their idealism must
have appeared to them as crashing down at the first touch of reality.

It was so much the repetition of Emmet's revolt, ending in riot and loot
and degradation--nay, worse, it seemed a very pantomime.

Suddenly, as the sound of maxims grew louder, a terrific black cloud
rose into the sky. A fire had broken out in the heart of the bazaar and
the flames had just rea