idiosyncrasies of the style. One must not expect
this when telling a tale, except perhaps when one is a boy, and the
dormitory is hushed to listen, and one goes on and on until honest
snores register satiety. Mr. Spenlove, stirring and sipping his cocoa,
stared straight across at Gruenbaum's house, which the current had now
brought before him, and composed his thoughts before going on to the
final conclusion of his story. He was moved somewhat himself because the
mere act of narration had evoked memories whose strength he had perhaps
underestimated since they had remained dormant so long, and the
immediate stress of the great conflict, in which they were all leisurely
participating, had led him to imagine that the world before the war was
dead and gone. Which it wasn't, he reflected, setting down his cup and
beginning to roll a cigarette ... not by a long shot; and remained
silent yet a little longer, marvelling at the extraordinary triviality
of such things as war, against the sombre verities of Race and Love and
Despair.

And then he suddenly became aware that the shoes had been again softly
discarded, and he heard the creak of the trestles as the navigating
officer stretched himself on his camp-bed alongside the hand-steering
gear. Rolling a cigarette Mr. Spenlove began again.

"I doubt if you can conceive now," he remarked, "how that bland
announcement of a possible war before morning startled and shocked me. I
doubt if anybody realizes how such things tore our hearts before those
autumn days in nineteen fourteen. Some of you may remember when war was
declared between England and the Boer Republics. Quite a little thrill
in London; a romantic feeling that the die was cast, and all that sort
of thing. But that was far away across the sea, a diminutive business
which it pleased us to consider one of our punitive expeditions. War,
the collision of European hosts, was a subject for literature and art.
It wouldn't ever happen again. The Turks and Italians had been at war
and it had been a decorous affair involving some nebulous actions in
Cyrenaica--a locality we had never heard of before--and a few amusing
incidents at sea. I remember we were pursued all one morning by an
indignant Italian scout-ship during that war, who wanted to know why we
hadn't stopped at her signal. I believe, as a matter of fact, the mate
on the bridge had been making himself a hammock and hadn't seen
anything. And when they did catch us up our