pent half the day in bed smoking cheap cigarettes, and the rest
sunning himself in the admiration of half-witted girls. The creature
was tuberculous in mind and body, and the only novel of his I read,
pretty well turned my stomach. Mr Aronson's strong point was jokes
about the war. If he heard of any acquaintance who had joined up or was
even doing war work his merriment knew no bounds. My fingers used to
itch to box the little wretch's ears.

Letchford was a different pair of shoes. He was some kind of a man, to
begin with, and had an excellent brain and the worst manners
conceivable. He contradicted everything you said, and looked out for an
argument as other people look for their dinner. He was a
double-engined, high-speed pacificist, because he was the kind of
cantankerous fellow who must always be in a minority. If Britain had
stood out of the war he would have been a raving militarist, but since
she was in it he had got to find reasons why she was wrong. And jolly
good reasons they were, too. I couldn't have met his arguments if I had
wanted to, so I sat docilely at his feet. The world was all crooked for
Letchford, and God had created him with two left hands. But the fellow
had merits. He had a couple of jolly children whom he adored, and he
would walk miles with me on a Sunday, and spout poetry about the beauty
and greatness of England. He was forty-five; if he had been thirty and
in my battalion I could have made a soldier out of him.

There were dozens more whose names I have forgotten, but they had one
common characteristic. They were puffed up with spiritual pride, and I
used to amuse myself with finding their originals in the _Pilgrim's
Progress_. When I tried to judge them by the standard of old Peter,
they fell woefully short. They shut out the war from their lives, some
out of funk, some out of pure levity of mind, and some because they
were really convinced that the thing was all wrong. I think I grew
rather popular in my role of the seeker after truth, the honest
colonial who was against the war by instinct and was looking for
instruction in the matter. They regarded me as a convert from an alien
world of action which they secretly dreaded, though they affected to
despise it. Anyhow they talked to me very freely, and before long I had
all the pacifist arguments by heart. I made out that there were three
schools. One objected to war altogether, and this had few adherents
except Aronson and Weekes, C.O.