It's the men who insist on committees meeting."

"Yes, and on keeping them from breaking their rules."

"What's the use of having committees if you can't break their silly old
rules?"

"Amiable anarchist," I said, "let us abandon committees and return to
Mrs. Rowley."

"Well," she said, "we soon got on to the War."

"You might easily do that," I said. "The subject has its importance.
What does Mrs. Rowley think of it?"

"Mrs. Rowley thinks it's all perfectly splendid. She hasn't the least
doubt about anything. She knows the uncle of a man whose cousin is in
the War Office and often sees Lord KITCHENER in the corridors, and he's
quite certain----"

"Who? Lord KITCHENER?"

"No, the uncle of the man whose cousin--he's quite certain the War will
be over in our favour before next June, because there'll be a revolution
in Potsdam and thousands of Germans are being killed in bread-riots
every day, and lots of stuff of that sort."

"I understand," I said. "You began to react against it."

"Something of that kind. She was so terribly serene and so dreadfully
over-confident that I got contradictious and had to argue with
her--simply couldn't restrain myself--and then she said she was sorry I
was such a pessimist, and I said I wasn't, and here I am."

"Yes," I said, "you are, and in a state of Cimmerian gloom, naturally
enough. But you've come to the right place--no, by Jove, now that I
think of it you've come to the wrong place, the very wrongest place in
the world."

"How's that?"

"Because I met old Captain Burstall out walking, and he was miserable
about everything. According to him we haven't got a dog's chance
anywhere. The Government's rotten, the Army's rotten, the Navy's worse
and the British Empire's going to be smashed up before Easter."

"Captain Burstall's the man for my money. If I'd only met him I should
have been as cheerful as a lark."

"And that," I said, "is exactly what I am, entirely owing to a natural
spirit of contradiction. I just pulled myself together and countered him
on every point."

"I daresay you did it very well," she said; "but if you're as
cock-a-hoop as you make out I don't see how I'm ever to get rid of my
depression. I shall be starting to contradict _you_ next."

"Which," I said, "will be an entirely novel experience for both of us.
But I'll tell you a better way; let's keep silent for ten minutes and
simmer back to our usual condition of reasonable hopefulness."

"I ca