"Sometimes," she continued, "I wonder whether you are quite responsible, Henry.

How you can even talk of these things when every man of your age and strength is fighting one way or another for his country, seems marvellous to me.

Do you realise that we are fighting for our very existence?
Do you realise that my own father, who is fifteen years older than you, is in the firing line?
This is a small place, of course, but there isn't a man left in it of your age, with your physique, who has had the slightest experience in either service, who isn't doing something." "I can't do more than send in applications," he grumbled.

"Be reasonable, my dear Philippa.

It isn't the easiest thing in the world to find a job for a sailor who has been out of it as long as I have." "So you say, but when they ask me what you are doing, as they all did in London this time, and I reply that you can't get a job, there is generally a polite little silence.