, who had once studied at Munich, said, “Yes, sir,” or, “You think so, sir? Of course you’re right.”

If a lieutenant-colonel said, “Browning was not a poet,” a staff captain, who had read Browning at Cambridge with passionate admiration, said: “I quite agree with you, sir. And who do you think was a poet, sir?”

It was the army system. The opinion of a superior officer was correct, always. It did not admit of contradiction. It was not to be criticized. Its ignorance was wisdom.

G.H.Q. lived, said our guest, in a world of its own, rose-colored, remote from the ugly things of war. They had heard of the trenches, yes, but as the West End hears of the East End⁠—a nasty place where common people lived. Occasionally they visited the trenches as society folk go slumming, and came back proud of having seen a shell burst, having braved the lice and the dirt.

“The trenches are the slums,” said our guest. “We are the Great Unwashed. We are the Mud-larks.”