at such an appeal was _infra
dig_. Long smoked, pondered, and thus delivered himself: "But is it not
paramount that these gentlemen should have trousers?"

A Set of Three

The other day I saw three sights, and, although they have no connexion
with each other, each was in its way sufficiently evocative of thought
to make that day a little more interesting than most.

It was the first day of the tardy spring of 1917, or rather the first
day into which had crept those hints that the power of the long, cruel
war-winter must some day be broken. The sun was almost visible, and a
tenderness now and then touched the air, and no one who is at all
responsive to weather conditions could fail to be a little elated and
believe once more not only in a future of sorts but also in a lurking
benignancy somewhere. Stimulated myself in this way, even although I was
approaching a rehearsal of a _revue_, I came suddenly in the King's Road
upon that disused burial-ground opposite the Six Bells, and was aware
that, sitting there on seats facing the road, in white aprons and caps,
with shawls over their shoulders, were five of the saddest old ladies I
have ever seen--occupants, I presume, of a neighbouring workhouse. There
they sat, saying nothing, and watching without enthusiasm the passers-by
and the 'buses and the taxis and all the hurry and scurry of an
existence from which they are utterly withdrawn and which they will soon
leave for ever. Being on my frivolous errand, I was pulled up very short
by the spectacle of five such stallholders as these whom the bigger
_revue_ which we call life had left so cold; and not only cold, but so
tired and so white, as life loves to do. There was a poignancy in their
very placidity, in the folded hands and the incommunicableness of them,
that was very searching. There was criticism too. Hardly more sentient
than the mummies which were displayed to the guests at Egyptian feasts,
they were equally admonitory....

I was glad again to be in the theatre listening to the familiar tones of
the producer wondering why in thunder no one but himself had the
faintest respect for punctuality.

Later in the day I saw a blinded officer, with both eyes bandaged, being
led along Sloane Street. Blinded men are, alas! not rare, and it was not
the officer himself that attracted my notice, but two fine, upstanding
young soldiers who as they passed him saluted with as much punctilio as
though he could see them.