confounded
obstinacy. Run the pathetic stunt. Say if he keeps silent that you
will be arrested, your home broken up, your family driven into the
workhouse, and you yourself probably shot. Pitch it strong and rich.
He is a bit of a softy from the look of him. That tender-hearted lot
are always the most obstinate when asked to give away their pals."

"Do you know, Dawson," I said, as he went upstairs with me to have a
lick and a polish, as he put it--"I am inclined to agree with Cary
that you are rather an inhuman beast."

My wife, with whom I could exchange no more than a dozen words and a
wink or two, gripped the situation and played up to it in the fashion
which compels the admiration and terror of mere men. Do they humbug
us, their husbands, as they do the rest of the world on our behalf?
She met Dawson as if he were an old family friend, heaped hospitality
upon him, and chaffed him blandly as if to entertain a police officer
with a warrant and handcuffs in his pocket were the best joke in the
world. "My husband, Mr. Dawson, needs a holiday very badly, but won't
take one. He thinks that the war cannot be pursued successfully unless
he looks after it himself. If you would carry him off and keep him
quiet for a bit, I should be deeply grateful." She then fell into a
discussion with Dawson of the most conveniently situated prisons. Mrs.
Copplestone dismissed Dartmoor and Portland as too bleakly situated,
but was pleased to approve of Parkhurst in the Isle of Wight--which I
rather fancy is a House of Detention for women. She insisted that the
climate of the Island was suited to my health, and wrung a promise
from Dawson that I should, if possible, be interned there. Dawson's
manners and conversation surprised me. His homespun origin was
evident, yet he had developed an easy social style which was neither
familiar nor aggressive. We were in his eyes eccentrics, possibly what
he would call among his friends "a bit off," and he bore himself
towards us accordingly. My small daughter, Jane, to whom he had been
presented as a colonel of police--little Jane is deeply versed in
military ranks--took to him at once, and his manner towards her
confirmed my impression that some vestiges of humanity may still be
discovered in him by the patient searcher. She insisted upon sitting
next to him and in holding his hand when it was not employed in
conveying food to his mouth. She was startled at first by the
discussion upon the prisons