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tude: as you have, my dear fellow. Boylston's here to confirm it."

Boylston grunted his assent.

"An attitude—an attitude?" Campton retorted. "The word is revolting to me! Anything a man like me can do is too easy to be worth doing. And as for anything one can say: how dare one say anything, in the face of what is being done out there to keep this room and this fire, and this ragged end of life, safe for such survivals as you and me?" He crossed to the table to take another cigar. As he did so he laid an apologetic pressure on his host's shoulder. "Men of our age are the chorus of the tragedy, Dastrey; we can't help ourselves. As soon as I open my lips to blame or praise I see myself in white petticoats, with a long beard held on by an elastic, goading on the combatants in a cracked voice from a safe corner of the ramparts. On the whole I'd sooner be spinning among the women."

"Well," said Dastrey, getting up, "I've got to get back to my spinning at the Ministry; where, by the way, there are some very pretty young women at the distaff. It's extraordinary how much better pretty girls type than plain ones; I see now why they get all the jobs."

The three went out into the winter blackness. They were used by this time to the new Paris: to extinguished lamps, shuttered windows, deserted streets, the