look out, Margery, or you'll
never marry. The papers are full of letters about people like you.
There's a beauty this morning. Half a minute; I'll read it to you."

"Don't trouble yourself, please," said Margery, curling her lip up
somewhere over her right eyebrow.

"No trouble at all, it's a pleasure," I said, turning over the pages.
"Ah! here we are. This is signed 'Disgusted Ex-Soldier.' Listen:--

"'SIR,--Speaking as one but recently returned to so-called
civilisation after the horrors of two years of war ["Conscript!" said
John], may I venture to give you my opinion of the Modern Girl ...'"

"That's you he means," said John.

"Pah!" said Margery.

"And bah! to you twice," said John.

"Shush, both of you," I said; "listen to 'Disgusted Ex-Soldier':--

"'What was it kept up our hearts and spirits during the terrible days
and nights in the trenches?'"

"The Rum Ration," cried John. "Hear, hear. Loud cries of 'Down with
Pussyfoot!'"

"Nothing of the sort," I said. "'It was the thought of the sweet
simple girls at home in England that nerved us during those frightful
days.'"

"Was it? So it was. Of course," said John feebly, "I forgot."

"'It was for them that we suffered as we did.'"

"Did we? I mean was it? So it was," said John, growing enthusiastic.
"Good old 'Ex-Soldier!' What's he say next?"

"'And when we return at last from the toil and stress of war [Grunts
of appreciation from John], what do we find?'"

"Pork and beans," said John.

I looked at him severely.

"John," I said, "this is no matter for idle jesting. Listen what the
poor fellow goes on to say, "'What do we find?'"

"Boiled be----I don't know, Alan," he finished hurriedly as I looked
at him again. "I--I don't think I found anything."

"'We find,'" I continued, treating him with contumely, "'a laughing,
giggling, smoking, jazzing, frivolous and slangy crowd of ill-mannered
flappers, devoid of all interest in the higher aspects of life and
thinking only of the latest fox-trot. What hope have I of finding
among such as these the woman who will look after my home and bring up
my children?'"

"Hooray!" said John, "that's the stuff to gie 'em."

Margery squeaked with indignation.

"Look after his home, indeed," she choked. "The impertinence of it!
The conceited ape! Who does he think he is?"

"Margery," said John in his special deep tone, "you are too young to
understand these things."

"Understand them! I should just think