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“ may talk about the Germans as much as you like,” remarked Mrs. Batterby with her customary decision; “but, for my part, I have no doubt that we shall beat them in the end: no doubt whatsoever!”

“Still, the German hosts are very numerous, and their artillery is magnificent,” said Mrs. Veale, who, much as she longed for the defeat of Germany, longed for the defeat of Mrs. Batterby still more.

Little Miss Skipworth hastened, as usual, to thrust in the olive-branch. “Dear Mrs. Batterby is thinking of the superior courage of our brave English soldiers,” she explained gently.

But Mrs. Batterby could not stand being Bowdlerised, or even translated. “No, I wasn’t, Matilda; at least not at that particular minute, though nobody admires the courage of the British Army more than I do, and always have done, and especially with Lord Kitchener at their head and in action against the enemy. I’ve got a very high opinion of the British soldier myself; none higher: much too high, in fact, to allow him to wear a collar to his bed-jacket like the one you are making, Matilda, without speaking a word in his defence.”

Matilda collapsed at once: she was composed of the most collapsible material ever provided for the manufacture of souls. “What is wrong with my collar, Mrs. Batterby? I thought I was exactly copying the pattern sent to us by the Red Cross. Anyway, I was trying to do so.”

“Trying and succeeding are two different things, which I should have thought you’d have found out by this time, Matilda, and you five-and-forty, if you are a day! Give me the collar, and I’ll fix it for you, or else the wounded soldier that wears it will wish he had died in the trenches before he had the chance of putting it on.”