Page:Heartbreak House, Great Catherine, and Playlets of the War.djvu/324

 doubt those guns WILL be moved: possibly even before the end of the war.

THE LADY. Then you think they are there still! But if the German War Office gets the list&mdash;and she will copy it before she gives it back to Blueloo, you may depend on it&mdash;all is lost.

AUGUSTUS.[lazily]. Well, I should not go as far as that. [Lowering his voice.] Will you swear to me not to repeat what I am going to say to you; for if the British public knew that I had said it, I should be at once hounded down as a pro-German.

THE LADY. I will be silent as the grave. I swear it.

AUGUSTUS.[again taking it easily]. Well, our people have for some reason made up their minds that the German War Office is everything that our War Office is not&mdash;that it carries promptitude, efficiency, and organization to a pitch of completeness and perfection that must be, in my opinion, destructive to the happiness of the staff. My own view&mdash;which you are pledged, remember, not to betray&mdash;is that the German War Office is no better than any other War Office. I found that opinion on my observation of the characters of my brothers-in-law: one of whom, by the way, is on the German general staff. I am not at all sure that this list of gun emplacements would receive the smallest attention. You see, there are always so many more important things to be attended to. Family matters, and so on, you understand.

THE LADY. Still, if a question were asked in the House of Commons&mdash;

AUGUSTUS. The great advantage of being at war, madam, is that nobody takes the slightest notice of the House of Commons. No doubt it is sometimes necessary for a Minister to soothe the more seditious members of that assembly by giving a pledge or two; but the War Office takes no notice of such things.