ide which was not swollen.

"Yes," he said sadly, "it does seem difficult to persuade them to go on
living. Ah, well!"

"Ah, well!" he said again, five minutes later, "they're wonderful--poor
young beggars! I'm very unhappy, Rudstock!"

"I'm not," said Rudstock, "I've enjoyed it in a way! Good-night!"

They shook hands, screwing up their mouths with pain, for their fists
were badly bruised, and parted, Rudstock going to the North, Wilderton
to the West.

1917.

IX

"THE DOG IT WAS THAT DIED"

Until the great war was over I had no idea that some of us who stayed at
home made the great sacrifice.

My friend Harburn is, or rather was, a Northumbrian, or some kind of
Northerner, a stocky man of perhaps fifty, with close-clipped grizzled
hair and moustache, and a deep-coloured face. He was a neighbour of mine
in the country, and we had the same kind of dogs--Airedales, never less
than three at a time, so that for breeding purposes we were useful to
each other. We often, too, went up to Town by the same train. His
occupation was one which gave him opportunity of prominence in public
life, but until the war he took little advantage of this, sunk in a kind
of bluff indifferentism which was almost cynical. I used to look on him
as a typically good-natured blunt Englishman, rather enjoying his
cynicism, and appreciating his open-air tendencies--for he was a devotee
of golf, and fond of shooting when he had the chance; a good companion,
too, with an open hand to people in distress. He was unmarried, and
dwelled in a bungalow-like house not far from mine, and next door to a
German family called Holsteig, who had lived in England nearly twenty
years. I knew them pretty well also--a very united trio, father, mother,
and one son. The father, who came from Hanover, was something in the
City, the mother was Scotch, and the son--the one I knew best and liked
most--had just left his public school. This youth had a frank, open,
blue-eyed face, and thick light hair brushed back without a parting--a
very attractive, slightly Norwegian-looking type. His mother was devoted
to him; she was a real West Highlander, slight, with dark hair going
grey, high cheekbones, a sweet but rather ironical smile, and those grey
eyes which have second sight in them. I several times met Harburn at
their house, for he would go in to play billiards with Holsteig in the
evenings, and the whole family were on very friendly terms with him.

The