Dowey's very ill,
Nothing can improve her.'
'Stop!' cries clever Kenneth, and finishes the verse:
'But dressed up in a Paris gown
To waddle through the Louvre.'
They fling back their heads, she points at him, he points at her. She
says ecstatically:
'Hairy legs!'
A mad remark, which brings him to his senses; he remembers who and what
she is.
'Mind your manners!' Rising, 'Well, thank you for my tea. I must be
stepping.'
Poor Mrs. Dowey, he is putting on his kit.
'Where are you living?'
He sighs.
'That's the question. But there's a place called The Hut, where some of
the 2nd Battalion are. They'll take me in. Beggars,' bitterly, 'can't be
choosers.'
'Beggars?'
'I've never been here before. If you knew'--a shadow coming over
him--'what it is to be in such a place without a friend. I was crazy
with glee, when I got my leave, at the thought of seeing London at last,
but after wandering its streets for four hours, I would almost have been
glad to be back in the trenches.'
'If you knew,' he has said, but indeed the old lady knows.
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