aissance
times, large, full-blooded, with vigorous opinions on all sorts of
matters.

"A lecturer is coming down from London to talk to the wounded in the
amusement-hall of the hospital," our hostess informed us. "And you both
must come and speak too."

The three of us got into the only motor of which the establishment now
boasts, a little runabout using a minimum of "petrol," and she guided us
rapidly by devious roads through the fog until a blur of light proclaimed
the presence of a building, one of some score or more built on the
golf-course by the British Government. I have not space hereto describe
that hospital, which is one of the best in England; but it must be
observed that its excellence and the happiness of its inmates are almost
wholly due to the efforts of the lady who now conducted us across the
stage of the amusement-hall, where all the convalescents who could walk
or who could be rolled thither in chairs were gathered. The lecturer had
not arrived. But the lady of the manor seated herself at the speaker's
table, singling out Scotch wits in the audience--for whom she was more
than a match--while the sculptor and I looked on and grinned and resisted
her blandishments to make speeches. When at last the lecturer came he
sat down informally on the table with one foot hanging in the air and
grinned, too, at her bantering but complimentary introduction. It was
then I discovered for the first time that he was one of the best
educational experts of that interesting branch of the British Government,
the Department of Reconstruction, whose business it is to teach the
convalescents the elements of social and political science. This was not
to be a lecture, he told them, but a debate in which every man must take
a part. And his first startling question was this:

"Why should Mr. Lloyd George, instead of getting five thousand pounds a
year for his services as prime minister, receive any more than a common
labourer?"

The question was a poser. The speaker folded his hands and beamed down
at them; he seemed fairly to radiate benignity.

"Now we mustn't be afraid of him, just because he seems to be
intelligent," declared our hostess. This sally was greeted with
spasmodic laughter. Her eyes flitted from bench to bench, yet met
nothing save averted glances. "Jock! Where are you, Jock? Why don't
you speak up?--you've never been downed before."

More laughter, and craning of necks for the Jocks. This ap