the bridge twelve paces from his
door, sharpening his jack-knife upon a soft parapet-stone that was
reported to bring cutlery to an incomparable edge and had paid for
its reputation, being half worn away--Nicholas Nanjivell, leaning his
weight on the parapet, to ease the pain in his leg--Nicholas
Nanjivell, gloomily contemplating his knife and wishing he could
plunge it into the heart of a man who stood behind a counter behind a
door which stood in view beyond the bridge-end--Nicholas Nanjivell,
nursing his own injury to the exclusion of any that might threaten
Europe--glanced up and beheld his neighbour Penhaligon's children,
Young 'Bert and 'Beida (Zobeida), approach by the street from the
Quay bearing between them a stretcher, composed of two broken paddles
and part of an old fishing-net, and on the stretcher, covered by a
tattered pilot-jack, a small form--their brother 'Biades
(Alcibiades), aged four. It gave him a scare.

"Lor sake!" said he, hastily shutting and pocketing his knife.
"What you got there?"

"'Biades," answered 'Beida, with a tragical face.

"Han't I heard your mother warn 'ee a score o' times, against lettin'
that cheeld play loose on the Quay! . . . What's happened to 'en?
Broke his tender neck, I shouldn' wonder. . . . Here, let me have a
look--"

"Broke his tender fiddle-stick!" 'Beida retorted. "He's bleedin' for
his country, is 'Biades, if you really want to know; and if you was
helpful you'd lend us that knife o' yours."

"What for, missy?"

"Why, to take off the injured limb. 'Bert's knife's no good since
the fore-part o' the week, when he broke the blade prizin' up limpets
an' never guessing how soon this War'd be upon us."

"I did," maintained 'Bert. "I was gettin' in food supplies."

"If I was you, my dears, I'd leave such unholy games alone,"
Nicky-Nan advised them. "No, and I'll not lend 'ee my knife,
neither. You don't know what War is, children: an' please God you
never will. War's not declared yet--not by England, anyway.
Don't 'ee go to seek it out until it seeks _you_."

"But 'tis comin'," 'Beida persisted. "Father was talkin' with Mother
last night--he didn' go out with the boats: and 'Bert and I both
heard him say--didn' we, 'Bert?--'twas safe as to-morrow's sun.
The way we heard was that Mother'd forgot to order us to bed; which
hasn't happened not since Coronation Night an' the bonfire. When she
came up to blow out the light she'd been cryin'. . . . That'