"
The Minister rang a bell.
"You're on your own, mind," he said. "No facts; what they want is
ginger. Yes, Mr. Japes?"
And seeing that the Minister was looking over his tortoiseshell.
spectacles at somebody behind him, Mr. Lavender turned and went out. In
the corridor he thought, "What terseness! How different from the days
when Dickens wrote his 'Circumlocution Office'! Punch!" And opening
the wrong door, he found himself in the presence of six little girls
in brown frocks, sitting against the walls with their thumbs in their
mouths.
"Oh!" he said, "I'm afraid I've lost my way."
The eldest of the little girls withdrew a thumb.
"What d'yer want?"
"The door," said Mr. Lavender.
"Second on the right."
"Goodbye," said Mr. Lavender.
The little girls did not answer. And he went out thinking, "These
children are really wonderful! What devotion one sees! And yet the
country is not yet fully roused!"
II
THE VALET
Joe Petty stood contemplating the car which, purchased some fifteen
years before had not been used since the war began. Birds had nested in
its hair. It smelled of mould inside; it creaked from rust. "The Guv'nor
must be cracked," he thought, "to think we can get anywhere in this
old geyser.
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