But don't you agree with me, Sandy ? Have not



216 CONVERSATIONS ON WAR

you, in your persevering Scotch way, heaped
coals upon the fire, merely because you were
disgusted with yourself for having lit the fire
at all ?

Johnston. Oh, I thoroughly understand what
you mean, Sir John. What you say puts me in
mind of a feeling I often had in my boyish
quarrels.
Ellesmere. I tell you what we will do.
Before you began to favour us with your
company, Sir Arthur, we used to get Milverton
to write an essay, and then we used to comment
upon it. Let us do the same thing now. We
will get Milverton to write us an essay on
quarrelling. It will be sure to apply, more or
less, to the present war, and will give pith and
point to our conversations on this subject.
Besides, it will amuse Milverton ; and I pity
him very much just now. Everything is going
against him. Think what must be the dismay in
his mind at the present state of affairs. For
years he has been apprehensive about some
general European war being inflicted on man-
kind. You were not with us, Sir Arthur, when
he used to oppress us with long essays about war,,
which, to my poor thinking, seemed, at the time,.
AND GENERAL CULTURE. 217

rather irrelevant. I am sure that he must be very
down-hearted now.
Sir Arthur. I don't perceive it.
