rst prize to his
radishes. Do you think, Sir, there's very much probability of this war?
It do seem to be beginning like."

"It looks more like beginning than it has ever done," said Mr. Britling.
"It's a foolish business."

"I suppose if they start in on us we got to hit back at them," said Mr.
Hickson. "Postman--he's got his papers too...."

Mr. Britling made his way through the drifting throng towards the little
wicket that led into the Gardens....

He was swung round suddenly by a loud bang.

It was the gun proclaiming the start of the balloon race.

He stood for some moments watching the scene. The balloon start had
gathered a little crowd of people, village girls in white gloves and
cheerful hats, young men in bright ties and ready-made Sunday suits,
fathers and mothers, boy scouts, children, clerks in straw hats,
bicyclists and miscellaneous folk. Over their heads rose Mr. Cheshunt,
the factotum of the estate. He was standing on a table and handing the
little balloons up into the air one by one. They floated up from his
hand like many-coloured grapes, some rising and falling, some soaring
steadily upward, some spinning and eddying, drifting eastward before the
gentle breeze, a string of bubbles against the sky and the big trees
that bounded the park. Farther away to the right were the striped
canvas tents of the flower-show, still farther off the roundabouts
churned out their music, the shooting galleries popped, and the swing
boats creaked through the air. Cut off from these things by a line of
fencing lay the open park in which the deer grouped themselves under the
great trees and regarded the festival mistrustfully. Teddy and Hugh
appeared breaking away from the balloon race cluster, and hurrying back
to their dart-throwing. A man outside a little tent that stood apart was
putting up a brave-looking notice, "Unstinted Teas One Shilling." The
Teddy perambulator was moored against the cocoanut shy, and Aunt
Wilshire was still displaying her terrible prowess at the cocoanuts.
Already she had won twenty-seven. Strange children had been impressed by
her to carry them, and formed her retinue. A wonderful old lady was Aunt
Wilshire....

Then across all the sunshine of this artless festival there appeared, as
if it were writing showing through a picture, "France Invaded by
Germany; Germany Invaded by Russia."

Mr. Britling turned again towards the wicket, with its collectors of
tribute, that led into the Gar