d you do?

MRS. FARRELL. I told his mother on him.

MITCHENER. Oh! what did she say?

MRS. FARRELL. She was as pleased as Punch. Thank Heaven, she says, hes
got somebody thatll be able to keep him when the supertax is put up to
twenty shillings in the pound.

MITCHENER. But your daughter herself? What did she say?

MRS. FARRELL. Accepted him, of course. What else would a young fool like
her do? He inthrojooced her to the Poet Laureate, thinking shed inspire
him.

MITCHENER. Did she?

MRS. FARRELL. Faith I dunna. All I know is she walked up to him as bold
as brass n said "Write me a sketch, dear." Afther all the trouble I took
with that chills manners shes no more notion how to behave herself than
a pig. Youll have to wear General Sandstones uniform: its the ony one in
the place, because he wont lend it to the shows.

MITCHENER. But Sandstones clothes wont fit me.

MRS. FARRELL (unmoved). Then youll have to fit THEM. Why shouldnt they
fitcha as well as they fitted General Blake at the Mansion House?

MITCHENER. They didnt fit him. He looked a frightful guy.

MRS. FARRELL. Well, you must do the best you can with them. You cant
exhibit your clothes and wear them too.

MITCHENER. And the public thinks the lot of a commanding officer a happy
one! Oh, if they could only see the seamy side of it. (He returns to his
table to resume work.)

MRS. FARRELL. If they could only see the seamy side of General
Sandstones uniform, where his flask rubs agen the buckle of his braces,
theyll tell him he ought to get a new one. Let alone the way he swears
at me.

MITCHENER. When a man has risked his life on eight battlefields, Mrs.
Farrell, he has given sufficient proof of his self-control to be excused
a little strong language.

MRS. FARRELL. Would you put up with bad language from me because Ive
risked my life eight times in childbed?

MITCHENER. My dear Mrs. Farrell, you surely would not compare a risk of
that harmless domestic kind to the fearful risks of the battlefield?

MRS. FARRELL. I wouldnt compare risks run to bear living people into the
world to risks run to blow them out of it. A mother's risk is jooty: a
soldier's nothin but divilmint.

MITCHENER (nettled). Let me tell you, Mrs. Farrell, that if the men did
not fight, the women would have to fight themselves. We spare you that,
at all events.

MRS. FARRELL. You cant help yourselves. If three-quarters of you was
killed we could replace you with the help