take this work. In time, too, no
doubt--as Government makes better provision--that work will grow less
and less. But we have not even arrived at it yet. Until it is set
going these poor women and children may be short of money or the food
that money buys. So the proposal is to raise a few pounds, form a
War Emergency Committee, and tide matters over until a higher
authority supersedes us. For in the interval a neighbour may be
starving because her husband has gone off to fight for his country.
None of us, surely, could bear the thought of that?"

Mrs Steele's voice had gathered confidence, with something of real
emotion, as it went on; and an approving murmur acknowledged her
little speech. Her husband, whose eyes had kindled towards the
close, was in the act of throwing her an applausive glance when Mrs
Polsue's voice cut the silence sharply.

"I don't understand this talk about a Soldiers' and Sailors'
Association, or whatever you call it. Are we a part of it, here in
this room?"

"Oh, no," the Vicar answered. "We are here merely to discuss forming
an Emergency Committee, to provide (among other things) present
relief until the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association--
dreadful name!--until the S.S.F.A., as we'll call it, is ready to
take over the work."

"And then we shall be cold-shouldered out, I suppose?"

"Dang it, ma'am!" put in Farmer Best. "What matter who does the
work, so long as the poor critters be fed meantime?"

[Here we should observe that while Mrs Polsue had a trick of sniffing
that suggested a chronic cold in the head, Farmer Best suffered from
an equally chronic obstruction of the respiratory organs, or (as he
preferred to call them) his pipes. As from time to time he essayed
to clear one or another of these, the resultant noise, always
explosive, resembled the snort of a bullock or the _klock_ of a
strangulated suction-pump. With these interjections Mrs Polsue on
the one hand, Farmer Best on the other, punctuated the following
dialogue. And this embarrassed the company, which, obliged in
politeness to attribute them to purely physical causes, could not but
own inwardly that they _might_ be mistaken for the comments--and
highly expressive ones--of mutual disapprobation.]

"Danging it don't answer my question--nor banging it," persisted Mrs
Polsue. "I want to know more about this Association, and where _we_
come in. . . . Just now, Mrs Steele was talking about a District
Se