ave a pension to the nation. I told
him I'd begin to think about that when he'd persuaded the Board of
Works to ventilate my old Court." He laughed again. "And now I see
the Press Bureau is enunciating the principle that it won't permit
criticism that might in any way weaken the confidence of the people in
the administration of affairs."

Bob opened his mouth wide and kept it open.

Sir Francis, with no diminution of the mild and bland benevolence of
his detachment, said:

"The voice is the Press Bureau's voice, but the hands are the hands
of the War Office. Can we reasonably hope to win, or not to lose, with
such a mentality at the head? I cannot admit that the War Office has
changed in the slightest degree in a hundred years. From time to time
a brainy civilian walks in, like Cardwell or Haldane, and saves it
from becoming patently ridiculous. But it never really alters. When I
was War Secretary in a transient government it was precisely the same
as it had been in the reign of the Duke of Cambridge, and to-day it is
still precisely the same. I am told that Haldane succeeded in teaching
our generals the value of Staff work as distinguished from dashing
cavalry charges. I don't appreciate that. The Staffs are still wide
open to men with social influence and still closed to men without
social influence. My grandson is full of great modern notions
about tactics. He may have talent for all I know. He got a Staff
appointment--because he came to me and I spoke ten words to an old
friend of mine with oak leaves in the club next door but one. No
questions asked. I mean no serious questions. It was done to oblige
me--the very existence of the Empire being at stake, according to
all accounts. So that I venture to doubt whether we're going to hold
Ypres, or anything else."

Bob, unimpressed by the speech, burst out:

"You've got the perspective wrong. Obviously the centre of gravity
is no longer in the West--it's in the East. In the West, roughly,
equilibrium has been established. Hence Poland is the decisive field,
and the measure of the Russian success or failure is the measure of
the Allied success or failure."

Sir Francis inquired with gentle joy:

"Then we're all right? The Russians have admittedly recovered from
Tannenberg. If there is any truth in a map they are doing excellently.
They're more brilliant than Potsdam, and they can put two men into the
field to the Germans' one--two and a half in fact."

Bob fier