He
fancied himself, indeed, dressed in khaki, with a breastplate composed
of newspapers containing reports of speeches which he had been charged
to deliver to soldiers at the front. He was passing in a winged tank
along those scenes of desolation of which he had so often read in his
daily papers, and which his swollen fancy now coloured even more vividly
than had those striking phrases of the past, when presently the tank
turned a somersault, and shot him out into a morass lighted up by
countless star-shells whizzing round and above. In this morass were
hundreds and thousands of figures sunk like himself up to the waist,
and waving their arms above their heads. "These," thought Mr. Lavender,
"must be the soldiers I have come to speak to," and he tore a sheet off
his breastplate; but before he could speak from its columns it became
thin air in his hand; and he went on tearing off sheet after sheet,
hoping to find a speech which would stay solid long enough for him to
deliver it. At last a little corner stayed substantial in his hand, and
he called out in a loud voice: "Heroes!"
But at the word the figures vanished with a wail, sinking into the
mud, which was left covered with bubbles iridescent in the light of the
star-shells.
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