Because a friend advised me to take to drink instead. That
saved my life, though it makes me very poor company in the mornings, as
[hiccuping] perhaps you've noticed.

AUGUSTUS. Well, upon my soul! You are not ashamed to stand there and
confess yourself a disgusting drunkard.

THE CLERK. Well, what of it? We're at war now; and everything's changed.
Besides, I should lose my job here if I stood drinking at the bar. I'm a
respectable man and must buy my drink and take it home with me. And they
won't serve me with less than a quart. If you'd told me before the war
that I could get through a quart of whisky in a day, I shouldn't have
believed you. That's the good of war: it brings out powers in a man
that he never suspected himself capable of. You said so yourself in your
speech last night.

AUGUSTUS. I did not know that I was talking to an imbecile. You ought to
be ashamed of yourself. There must be an end of this drunken slacking.
I'm going to establish a new order of things here. I shall come down
every morning before breakfast until things are properly in train. Have
a cup of coffee and two rolls for me here every morning at half-past
ten.

THE CLERK. You can't have no rolls. The only baker that baked rolls was
a Hun; and he's been interned.

AUGUSTUS. Quite right, too. And was there no Englishman to take his
place?

THE CLERK. There was. But he was caught spying; and they took him up to
London and shot him.

AUGUSTUS. Shot an Englishman!

THE CLERK. Well, it stands to reason if the Germans wanted to spy they
wouldn't employ a German that everybody would suspect, don't it?

AUGUSTUS [rising again]. Do you mean to say, you scoundrel, that an
Englishman is capable of selling his country to the enemy for gold?

THE CLERK. Not as a general thing I wouldn't say it; but there's men
here would sell their own mothers for two coppers if they got the
chance.

AUGUSTUS. Beamish, it's an ill bird that fouls its own nest.

THE CLERK. It wasn't me that let Little Pifflington get foul. I don't
belong to the governing classes. I only tell you why you can't have no
rolls.

AUGUSTUS [intensely irritated]. Can you tell me where I can find an
intelligent being to take my orders?

THE CLERK. One of the street sweepers used to teach in the school until
it was shut up for the sake of economy. Will he do?

AUGUSTUS. What! You mean to tell me that when the lives of the gallant
fellows in our trenches, and the fate of the Br