tely arranged in a pattern on the
bathroom floor.

She had not yet gathered, as I had, that it was Sinclair and the
Reverend Henry. I do not think that these two can have been properly
trained in their youth to put away their toys when they had finished
with them, as all tidy children should. They had no right to go out
suddenly and play tennis, leaving the drawing-room carpet in that
condition.

I had seen it coming on for some days. As soon as Henry has spent his
first half-hour on the newspapers he is ripe to explain in detail the
exact disposition of the Allied forces and "what they are evidently
driving at." And the thing is getting very complicated. He cannot make
you understand. He tries to draw maps on the back of envelopes, but his
drawing is pitiable, and then naturally he reaches out at any object
that happens to be lying on the table, planks it down for Paris or
Verdun, and gets seriously to work. He and Sinclair were sitting before
the unlit fire in the drawing-room when Sinclair put forth his brilliant
hypothesis about a flanking movement on VON KLUECK'S right. Henry was
quite certain it was wrong. He was down on his knees in a moment
grabbing pieces of coal.

"Look here," he said. "There's Chalons; and that shovel is Soissons. You
must not forget that the Ardennes lie in behind here"--realistically
represented by a heap of logs from the wood-basket--"and that is the
Meuse. Of course it isn't quite so straight as that really"--he put the
poker in position--"but that is the line of it. Very well. Can't you see
that what he is at is to nip this force here between two fires? By Jove,
the tongs will do splendidly for that. Might have been made for it. So.
Well, if JOFFRE is any good--Stop a bit"--he filled both hands with
coal--"move your chair back. There, that's Paris, and the edge of the
fender is the Marne. Well, if JOFFRE is not asleep his game is
obviously----"

"Stop a bit," said Sinclair. "You've left out the CROWN PRINCE."

"No, I haven't. That's him there in the work-basket. And you must
remember that there are Uhlans all over the place." (I think that it
must have been the Uhlans that chiefly exacerbated my wife when she came
to clear up. They did reach pretty far afield, and there was quite a lot
of them under the sofa.) "This is the Allied front"--Sinclair had
brought him several walking-sticks by this time. "Now suppose we were to
swing round like this--I say, do move your chair. Like this.