alone here—over by the window, laid down his knife and fork, once again ready to take command of his regiment. With the coming of an officerial frown on his brow, I fancied his lips moved as though growling, "Ten-shun!" He wore no medals. But he bore, rather than wore, a Victoria Cross in that lonely look in his eyes, that shabby genteelness in his clothes. That meagerness in the carefully selected meal.... Yes, they were all here. Even the doorman was one of them who, caught by those strains, was peering through the window with something of the sharpness of Tommy's eye, musket in hand, peeping through a periscope over the top of a trench.... Further out in the street a ragged red-nosed beggar had paused—"Ole Bill," himself—and stood listening with a curious expression lighting his perplexed face....
Who could do such a trivial thing as eat under such pitiless drum fire as this!
It was inevitable that the orchestra should then play, "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag, and Smile, Smile, Smile,"—which is what England can do to such perfection. At any rate, there we were all singing—not lustily, but softly, resolutely. "Facing the music," as the saying is, with a smile, a whimsical sort of smile, that told of dreams past and hinted of dreams yet to come, hyphenated with a sigh.
