, and Mr Carr talked politics to me, and I tried to quote
Dick's remarks and appear intelligent, but it didn't come off.

"It was a mile, and more. It seemed like three, and when we arrived at
the opening the car was not there. We sat down against the dusty
hedgerow and gave way to despair. Here we were stranded five weary
miles from our base, i.e. the hampers, and what were we going to do?
Every one had a different suggestion, but the object of them all was the
same--_get something to eat_. It's humiliating how greedy people become
when they are defrauded of a meal! Dawson and the car were forgotten,
everything was forgotten, and when I said that doctors were agreed that
we ate too much, and an occasional starve was the most healthy thing
that could happen, they looked coldly on me, and Stanor said doctors
might keep their theories, but give him _foie gras_! Finally we agreed
to be scouts and go forth on a foraging expedition through the tiny
village, seeking what we might devour. Geoffrey was the scout-master,
and we were to meet him at the second lamp-post and report.

"There were half a dozen cottages, one shop, and a yard where they sold
coal and fresh eggs. So that meant a cottage each, and the stores
thrown in. Our orders were to knock on each door and stand close so as
to have a good view of the interior when it was opened. If it was a
dirty interior we were to dissemble, and ask the way; if it was clean,
we were to say, `Oh, if you please, we are stranded motorists, and do
you supply plain teas?' In case of _two_ being clean, the choice was to
be left with the scout-master, who would decide between them with tact
and discretion.

"Bridgie, it _was_ sport! They were _all_ clean, and they _all_
supplied plain teas, but the astounding part was that no one could
supply milk! (Esmeralda says she has never yet raided an English
cottage where they _could_.) And they all offered the same bill of
fare--tea with tinned milk, eggs, and spring onions! We chose the
biggest and airiest cottage, ordered eggs, looked haughtily at onions,
adjourned to the village store and tried to discover some accessories
among the rope, firewood, and linoleum. There was tinned salmon, but
Esmeralda said she objected to us dying on her hands, and loaf sugar,
and treacle, and bull's-eyes in a glass bottle, and gingerbread biscuits
(but the snap had departed, and they were so soft that you could have
rolled them in balls), and