Mr.Lavender watched it disappear with a certain irritation which he subdued at once."How selfish of me," he thought, "even to think of eating while this young hero is still hungry.""Are you, then," he said, "the victim of some religious or political plot?""Both," replied the young man, leaning back with a sigh of repletion, and wiping his mouth."I was released to-day, and, as I said, I shall be court-martialled again to-day fortnight.It'll be two years this time.
But they can't break me."
Mr.Lavender gasped, for at the word "courtmartialled" a dreadful doubt had assailed him.
"Are you," he stammered--"you are not--you cannot be a Conscientious Objector?""I can," said the young man.
Mr.Lavender half rose in horror.
"I don't approve," he ejaculated; "I do not approve of you.""Of course not," said the young man with a little smile at once proud and sad who does? If you did I shouldn't have to eat like this, nor should Ihave the consciousness of spiritual loneliness to sustain me.You look on me as a moral outcast, as a leper.That is my comfort and my strength.For though I have a genuine abhorrence of war, I know full well that I could not stick this if it were not for the feeling that Imust not and will not lower myself to the level of mere opportunists like you, and sink myself in the herd of men in the street."At hearing himself thus described Mr.Lavender flushed.
"I yield to no one, he said, "in my admiration of principle.It is because of my principles that I regard you as a----""Shirker," put in the young man calmly."Go on; don't mince words; we're used to them.""Yes," said Mr.Lavender, kindling, "a shirker.Excuse me! A renegade from the camp of Liberty, a deserter from the ranks of Humanity, if you will pardon me.""Say a Christian, and have done with it," said the young man.
"No," said Mr.Lavender, who had risen to his feet, "I will not go so far as that.You are not a Christian, you are a Pharisee.I abhor you.""And I abhor you," said the young man suddenly."I am a Christian Socialist, but I refuse to consider you my brother.And I can tell you this: Some day when through our struggle the triumph of Christian Socialism and of Peace is assured, we shall see that you firebrands and jingoes get no chance to put up your noxious heads and disturb the brotherhood of the world.We shall stamp you out.We shall do you in.
We who believe in love will take jolly good care that you apostles of hate get all we've had and more--if you provoke us enough that is."He stopped, for Mr.Lavender's figure had rigidified on the other side of the table into the semblance of one who is about to address the House of Lords.
"I can find here," he cried, "no analogy with religious persecution.
This is a ****** matter.The burden of defending his country falls equally on every citizen.I know not, and I care not, what promises were made to you, or in what spirit the laws of compulsory service were passed.You will either serve or go to prison till you do.I am a plain Englishman, expressing the view of my plain countrymen."The young man, tilting back in his chair, rapped on the table with the handle of his dinner-knife.
"Hear, hear!" he murmured.
"And let me tell you this," continued Mr.Lavender, "you have no right to put a mouthful of food between your lips so long as you are not prepared to die for it.And if the Huns came here tomorrow I would not lift a finger to save you from the fate you would undoubtedly receive."During this colloquy their voices had grown so loud that the maid, entering in dismay, had gone into the bar and informed the company that a Conscientious Objector had eaten all the food and was "carrying on outrageous" in the coffee-room.On hearing this report those who were assembled--being four commercial travellers far gone in liquor--taking up the weapons which came nearest to hand--to wit, four syphons--formed themselves two deep and marched into the coffee-room.Aware at once from Mr.Lavender's white hair and words that he was not the Objector in question, they advanced upon the young man, who was still seated, and taking up the four points of the compass, began squirting him unmercifully with soda-water.Blinded and dripping, the unfortunate young fellow tried desperately to elude the cordon of his persecutors, only to receive a fresh stream in his face at each attempt.Seeing him thus tormented, amid the coarse laughter of these half-drunken "travellers," Mr.Lavender suffered a moment of the most poignant struggle between his principles and his chivalry.Then, almost unconsciously grasping the ham-bone, he advanced and called out loudly:
"Stop! Do not persecute that young man.You are four and he is one.
Drop it, I tell you--Huns that you are!"
The commercial fellows, however, laughed; and this infuriating Mr.
Lavender, he dealt one of them a blow with the ham-bone, which, lighting on the funny point of his elbow, caused him to howl and spin round the room.One of the others promptly avenged him with a squirt of syphon in Mr.Lavender's left eye; whereon he incontinently attacked them all, whirling the ham-bone round his head like a shillelagh.And had it not been that Blink and the maid seized his coat-tails he would have done them severe injury.It was at this moment that Joe Petty, attracted by the hullabaloo, arrived in the doorway, and running up to his master, lifted him from behind and carried him from the room, still brandishing the ham-bone and kicking out with his legs.Dumping him into the car, Joe mounted hastily and drove off.Mr.Lavender sat for two or three minutes coming to his senses before full realization of what he had done dawned on him.Then, flinging the ham-bone from him, he sank back among the cushions, with his chin buried on his chest."What have I done?" he thought over and over again."What have I done? Taken up the bone for a Conscientious Objector--defended a renegade against great odds! My God!
I am indeed less than a public man!"
And in this state of utter dejection, inanition, and collapse, with Blink asleep on his feet, he was driven back to Hampstead.