led her ear. The dog passed into an
hypnotic trance, broken by soft grumblings of pleasure. "The most
beautiful eyes in the world!" thought Mr. Lavender, replacing his hat;
"the innocence and goodness of her face are entrancing."

In his long holland coat, with his wide-brimmed felt hat all dusty, and
the crutch-handled stick in his hand, he had already arrested the
attention of five boys, the little girl with the perambulator, a postman,
a maid-servant, and three old ladies.

"What a beautiful dog yours is!" said one of the old ladies; "dear
creature! Are you a shepherd?"

Mr. Lavender removed his hat.

"No, madam," he said; "a public speaker."

"How foolish of me!" replied the old lady.

"Not at all, madam; the folly is mine." And Mr. Lavender bowed. "I have
come here to give an address on babies."

The old lady looked at him shrewdly, and, saying something in a low voice
to her companions, passed on, to halt again a little way off.

In the meantime the rumour that there was a horse down in the Clemenceau
Road had spread rapidly, and more boys, several little girls, and three
soldiers in blue, with red ties, had joined the group round Mr. Lavender,
to whom there seemed something more than providential in this rapid
assemblage. Looking round him for a platform from which to address them,
he saw nothing but the low wall of the little villa garden outside which
he was standing. Mounting on this, therefore, and firmly grasping the
branch of a young acacia tree to steady himself, he stood upright, while
Blink, on her hind legs, scratched at the wall, whining and sniffing his
feet.

Encouraged by the low murmur of astonishment, which swelled idly into a
shrill cheer, Mr. Lavender removed his hat, and spoke as follows:

"Fellow Britons, at this crisis in the history of our country I make no
apology for addressing myself to the gathering I see around me. Here, in
the cradle of patriotism and the very heart of Movements, I may safely
assume that you are aware of the importance of Man-power. At a moment
when every man of a certain age and over is wanted at the front, and
every woman of marrigeable years is needed in hospitals, in factories, on
the land, or where not, we see as never before the paramount necessity of
mobilizing the forces racial progress and increasing the numbers of our
population. Not a man, not a woman can be spared from the great task in
which they are now engaged, of defeating the common enemy. S