All this is by way of preface to the statement that on the third
of May (vide diary) I went to the club. It was just after lunch
and the great smoking-room was full of men in khaki and men in
blue and gold, with a sprinkling of men, mostly elderly, in mufti;
and from their gilt frames the full-length portraits of departed
men of war in gorgeous uniforms looked down superciliously on
their more sadly attired descendants. I got into a corner by the
door, so as to be out of the way, for I knew by experience that
should there be in the room a choleric general, he would
inevitably trip over the casually extended front wheel of my
chair, greatly to the scandal of modest ears and to my own
physical discomfiture.
Various seniors came up and passed the time of the day with me--
one or two were bald-headed retired colonels of sixty, dressed in
khaki, with belts like equators on a terrestrial globe and with a
captain's three stars on their sleeves. Gallant old boys, full of
gout and softness, they had sunk their rank and taken whatever
dull jobs, such as guarding internment camps or railway bridges,
the War Office condescendingly thought fit to give them.
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