The scratch, scratch of his pen was as regular as the swish of a piston.

On the other hand, the general often stopped and looked off into space, and three times he got up to mend the fire.

At the end of the afternoon Mrs.Ward came in, her cheeks pink with the cold; she had left the seven-year-old to care for the one-year-old, and the five-year-old to look after the three-year-old, and had come scurrying through the streets in a brown alpaca dress with a waterproof cape over her shoulders.

She and the general spoke for a few moments in their corner, and she hurried out again.

The general finished the letter he was writing and wrote another, and then backed up to the stove with his coat tails in front of him and stood benignly watching Barclay work.