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 go on with that sort of thing if other people haven’t enough humour to take it in good part. Culroyd and Hilda were so tremendously in earnest that they couldn’t bear to be chaffed; and, the stiffer they became, the more irresistible they were to Will. I intervened once or twice, when I thought Culroyd was losing his temper, but the situation seemed to get suddenly out of hand; there was something very like a scene.

“If you don’t know how to behave,” said Culroyd—very rudely, I thought, “do hire some one to teach you. Your manners would disgrace a privates’ canteen.” “Would they? I’m afraid I’m not a good judge,” said Will. It was neat; but, though I’m his mother, I feel he ought not to have said it. I expect you know that Culroyd was still at Eton when the war broke out. Brackenbury positively forbade him to take a commission before he was eighteen, so Culroyd ran away and enlisted. It was in the regular army, you understand, and they had every kind of difficulty in getting him out. He joined the Coldstream afterwards, but for a time he was a private. . . “A better judge of draft-dodgers, perhaps,” said Culroyd.

The word was new to me, and I had to ask