't coloured
cloth to be got there's--red flannel. Anything is better than leaving
the mass of people to mob about...."

A momentary vision danced before Mr. Britling's eyes of red flannel
petticoats being torn up in a rapid improvisation of soldiers to resist
a sudden invasion. Passing washerwomen suddenly requisitioned. But one
must not let oneself be laughed out of good intentions because of
ridiculous accessories. The idea at any rate was the sound one....

The vision of what ought to be done shone brightly while Mr. Britling
and Mr. Wilkins maintained it. But presently under discouraging
reminders that there were no rifles, no instructors, and, above all, the
open hostility of the established authorities, it faded again....

Afterwards in other conversations Mr. Britling reverted to more modest
ambitions.

"Is there no clerical work, no minor administrative work, a man might be
used for?" he asked.

"Any old dug-out," said the man with the thin face, "any old doddering
Colonel Newcome, is preferred to you in that matter...."

Mr. Britling emerged from his club about half-past three with his mind
rather dishevelled and with his private determination to do something
promptly for his country's needs blunted by a perplexing "How?" His
search for doors and ways where no doors and ways existed went on with a
gathering sense of futility.

He had a ridiculous sense of pique at being left out, like a child shut
out from a room in which a vitally interesting game is being played.

"After all, it is _our_ war," he said.

He caught the phrase as it dropped from his lips with a feeling that it
said more than he intended. He turned it over and examined it, and the
more he did so the more he was convinced of its truth and soundness....

Section 2

By night there was a new strangeness about London. The authorities were
trying to suppress the more brilliant illumination of the chief
thoroughfares, on account of the possibility of an air raid. Shopkeepers
were being compelled to pull down their blinds, and many of the big
standard lights were unlit. Mr. Britling thought these precautions were
very fussy and unnecessary, and likely to lead to accidents amidst the
traffic. But it gave a Rembrandtesque quality to the London scene,
turned it into mysterious arrangements of brown shadows and cones and
bars of light. At first many people were recalcitrant, and here and
there a restaurant or a draper's window still blazed out