Just look at it, my dear Major, from a commonsense point of view--" He forgot, the amazing young idiot, that he was talking not to a maiden aunt, but to a hard-bitten old soldier.

"What good would it serve to stick the comparatively rare man--I say it in all modesty--the comparatively rare man like myself in the trenches?
It would be foolish waste.

I assure you I'm putting all my talents at the disposal of the country." Seeing, I suppose, in my eyes, the maintained stoniness of non-conviction, he went on, "But, pay dear sir, be reasonable." ...

Reasonable! I nearly choked.

If I could have stood once more on my useless legs, I should have swung my left arm round and clouted him on the side of the head.
Reasonable indeed! This well-fed, able-bodied, young Oxford prig to tell me, an honourable English officer and gentleman, to be reasonable, when the British Empire, in peril of its existence, was calling on all its manhood to defend it in arms! I glared at him.