ide's feelings and don't try to make
things as nasty for each other as they can. The business is done in
a picturesque way, with flags and drums and speeches. There are
negotiations and flags of truce and mutual respect for gallant
foemen--instead of this d____d coldblooded, scientific slaughter."

"No war was ever like that," said Waterhouse. "Novelists and other silly
fools write about war as if it were a kind of sport. But it never was
really."

"The last war I was in, was," said Power.

"I don't believe you ever were in a war before," said Waterhouse.
"You're not old enough to have gone to South Africa."

"All the same I was in a war," said Power, "though I didn't actually
fight. I was wounded at the time and couldn't But I was there. Our Irish
war at Easter, 1916."

"That footy little rebellion," said Waterhouse.

"You may call it what you like," said Power, "but it was a much better
war than this one from every point of view, except mere size. It was
properly conducted on both sides."

"I suppose you want to tell a yarn about it," said Waterhouse, "and if
you do I can't stop you; but you needn't suppose I'll believe a word you
say."

"The truth of this narrative," said Power, "will compel belief even in
the most sceptical mind. I happened to be at home at the time on sick
leave, wounded in the arm. Those were the days when one got months
of sick leave, before some rotten ass invented convalescent homes for
officers and kept them there. I had three months' leave that time and I
spent it with my people in Ballymahon."

"The whole of it?" said Waterhouse. "Good Lord!"

"You'd have spent it in the Strand Palace Hotel, I suppose, running in
and out of music halls, but I prefer the simple joys of country life,
though I couldn't shoot or ride properly on account of my arm. Still I
could watch the sunset and listen to the birds singing, which I like.
Besides, I was absolutely stoney at the time, and couldn't have stayed
in London for a week. As it happened, it was a jolly good thing I was
there. If I'd been in London I'd have missed that war. Perhaps I'd
better begin by telling you the sort of place Ballymahon is."

"You needn't," said Waterhouse. "I spent three months in camp in County
Tipperary. I know those dirty little Irish towns. Twenty public-houses.
Two churches, a workhouse and a police barrack."

"In Ballymahon there is also a court house and our ancestral home. My
old dad is the principal doctor