e, and then absurdly the ceiling began to rain
upon us, first at this point and then that. "My new suit!" cried some
one. "Perrrrrr-up pe-rr"--a new vertical line of blackened water would
establish itself and form a spreading pool upon the gleaming cloth. The
men nearest would arrange catchment areas of plates and flower bowls.
"Draw up!" said Tarvrille, "draw up. That's the bad end of the table!"
He turned to the imperturbable butler. "Take round bath towels," he
said; and presently the men behind us were offering--with inflexible
dignity--"Port wine, Sir. Bath towel, Sir!" Waulsort, with streaks of
blackened water on his forehead, was suddenly reminded of a wet year
when he had followed the French army manoeuvres. An animated dispute
sprang up between him and Neal about the relative efficiency of the new
French and German field guns. Wrassleton joined in and a little drunken
shrivelled Oxford don of some sort with a black-splashed shirt front who
presently silenced them all by the immensity and particularity of his
knowledge of field artillery. Then the talk drifted to Sedan and the
effect of dead horses upon drinking-water, which brought Wrassleton
and Weston Massinghay into a dispute of great vigour and emphasis. "The
trouble in South Africa," said Weston Massinghay, "wasn't that we didn't
boil our water. It was that we didn't boil our men. The Boers drank the
same stuff we did. THEY didn't get dysentery."

That argument went on for some time. I was attacked across the table by
a man named Burshort about my Endowment of Motherhood schemes, but
in the gaps of that debate I could still hear Weston Massinghay
at intervals repeat in a rather thickened voice: "THEY didn't get
dysentery."

I think Evesham went early. The rest of us clustered more and more
closely towards the drier end of the room, the table was pushed along,
and the area beneath the extinguished conflagration abandoned to a
tinkling, splashing company of pots and pans and bowls and baths.
Everybody was now disposed to be hilarious and noisy, to say startling
and aggressive things; we must have sounded a queer clamour to a
listener in the next room. The devil inspired them to begin baiting me.
"Ours isn't the Tory party any more," said Burshort. "Remington has made
it the Obstetric Party."

"That's good!" said Weston Massinghay, with all his teeth gleaming; "I
shall use that against you in the House!"

"I shall denounce you for abusing private confiden