They all rose early the next day. Ninian had been out of the house before any of them had reached the breakfast room, and when he returned, his arms were full of newspapers.

"What's Walkley say?" said Gilbert. "That's all I want to know!"

They opened the Times, and then, when they had read the criticism of "The Magic Casement," they murmured, "Charming! Splendid! Oh, ripping!" while Gilbert, sitting back in his chair, smiled beatifically and said, "Read it again, coves. Read it aloud and slowly!"

While they were reading the notices, Henry went off to a post office, and sent his letter to Lady Cecily by express messenger. "That's settled," he said, as he returned home, for he had been afraid that he might change his mind. As he was shaving that morning, he had faltered in his resolution. "I'd better go," he had said to himself, and then had added weakly, "No, I'm damned if I will!" Well, it was settled now. The letter was on its way to her. She would probably be angry with him, but not as angry as he was with her, and perhaps they would not meet again for a long while. So much the better. Now he could get on with his book in peace. Gilbert was right. Women do upset things. Well, this particular woman would not upset him again....

They had read all the notices when Henry returned, and were now at breakfast. Roger was relating the latest legal jest about Mr. Justice Kirkcubbin, a poor old man who persisted in clinging to the Bench in spite of the broadest hints from the Law Journal, and Ninian was making mysterious movements with his hands.

"What's the matter, Ninian?" Henry asked, as he sat down at the table.

Ninian, while searching for the notices of Gilbert's play, had seen a sentence in a serial story in one of the newspapers.... "Her hands fluttered helplessly over his breast" ... and he was trying to discover exactly what the lady had done with her hands. "She seems to have just flopped them about," he said, and he turned to Gilbert. "Look here, Gilbert," he said, "you try it. I'll clasp you in my arms as the hero clasped this female, and you'll let your hands flutter helplessly over my breast!"

"I'll let my fist flutter helplessly over your jaw, young Ninian!..."

"I don't believe she let her hands do anything of the sort," Ninian went on. "She couldn't have done it. An engineer couldn't do it, and I don't believe a female can do what an engineer can't do!"

"I suppose," he added, getting up from the table, "Tom Arthurs is half way across now. I wish I could have gone with him. What a holiday!"

"Talking of holidays," Gilbert said, "I'm going to take one, and as you don't seem in a fit state to do any work, Quinny, you'd better take one too, and come with me!"

"Where are you going?" Roger asked. "Anglesey?"

"No. I thought of going there, but I've changed my mind. I shall go to Ireland with Quinny."

"Ireland!" Henry exclaimed, looking across at Gilbert.

"Yes. Dublin. We can go to-night. I've never been there, and I'd like to know what these chaps, Marsh and Galway, are up to. That whatdoyoucallit movement you were telling me about?... you know, the thing that means 'a stitch in time saves nine' or something of the sort!"

"Oh, the Sinn Fein movement!"

"Yes. That's the thing. The Improved Tories ought to know about that...."

"That reminds me," said Roger, "of an idea I had in the middle of the night about the Improved Tories. We ought to publish our views on problems. The Fabians do that kind of thing rather well. We ought to imitate them. We ought to study some subject hard, argue all round it, and then tell the world just how we think it ought to be solved. I thought we might begin on the problem of unemployment...."

"Good Lord, do you think we can solve that!" Ninian exclaimed.

"No, but we might find a means of palliating it. My own notion...."

"I thought you had some scheme in your skull, Roger!" said Gilbert. "Let's have it!"

"Well, it's rather raw in my mind at present, but my idea is that the way to mitigate the problem of unemployment, perhaps solve it, is to join it on to the problem of defence. Supposing we decided to create a big army ... and we shall need one sooner or later with all these ententes and alliances we're forming ... the problem would be to form it without dislocating the industrial system. My idea is to make it compulsory for every man to undergo military training, about a couple of months every year, and call the men up to the camp in times of trade depression. You wouldn't have to call them all up at once ... trades aren't all slack at the same time ... and you'd arrange the period of training as far as possible to fit in with the slack time in each job. I mean, people who are employed in gasworks could easily be trained in the summer without dislocating the gas industry ... colliers, too, and people like that ... and men who are slack in the winter, like builders' men, could be trained in the winter. That's my idea roughly. There'd be training going on all the year round, and of course you could vary the duration of the period of training ... never less than two months, but longer if trade were badly depressed. You'd save a lot of misery that way ... you'd keep your men fit and fed and their homes going ... and you'd have the nucleus of a large army. I don't see why we shouldn't bring the Board of Education in. If we were to raise the school age to sixteen, and then make it compulsory for every boy to go into a cadet corps or something of the sort for a couple of years, you'd relieve the pressure on the labour market at that end enormously, and you'd make the job of getting the army ready much easier in case of emergency. A couple of years' training to begin with, followed by a couple of months' further training every year, would make all the difference in the world to us militarily, and it would do away, largely, with the unemployed!"

"How about apprentices?" said Gilbert. "If you raise the school age to sixteen and then make all the boys go into training until they are eighteen, you're going to make a big difficulty in the way of getting skilled labour!"

"I don't think so. As far as I can make out the period of apprenticeship is much too long. Five or six years is a ridiculous time to ask a boy to spend in learning his job, and any trade unionist will tell you that every apprentice spends the first year or two in acting as a sort of messenger: fetching beer and cleaning up things. I suppose the real reason why the period of indenture is so long is because the Unions don't want to swamp the labour market with skilled workers. Well, why shouldn't we reduce the period of apprenticeship by giving the boy a military training? You see, don't you, what a problem this is? I thought of talking about it to the Improved Tories, and when we'd argued it over a bit, we'd put our proposals into print and circulate them among informed people, and invite them to come and tell us what they think of the notion from their point of view ... Trade Union secretaries and military men and employers and people like that ... and then, we might publish a book on it. JaurÉs wrote a book on the French Army ... a very good book, too ... so there isn't anything remarkably novel about the notion, except, perhaps, my idea of linking the military problem on to the unemployment problem. You and Quinny could write the book, Gilbert, because you've got style and we want the book to be written so that people will read it without getting tied up. Of course, if you must go to Ireland, you must, but it seems a little needless, doesn't it?"

"This business will take time," Gilbert replied. "Tons of time. I don't think our visit to Ireland will affect it much. You'll come with me, won't you, Quinny?"

Henry nodded his head. "At once, if you like," he answered, hoping indeed that Gilbert would suggest an immediate departure. If Lady Cecily were to hear that he had left London....

"To-night will do," said Gilbert.