At the joyous word Quilp leapt on me with a frenzied demonstration. "Good
dog," I said. "If Mr. McKenna puts a guinea tax on you I'll never say a
good word for him again."




"W.G."


The worst of spending week-ends in the country in these anxious days is the
difficulty of getting news. About six o'clock on Saturday evening I am
seized with a furious hunger. What has happened on the East front? What on
the West? What in Serbia? Has Greece made up its heroic mind? Is Rumania
still trembling on the brink? What does the French communiqué say? These
and a hundred other questions descend on me with frightful insistence.
Clearly I can't go to bed without having them answered. But there is not an
evening paper to be got nearer than the little railway station in the
valley two miles away, and there is no way of getting it except by Shanks'
mare. And so, unable to resist the glamour of _The Star_, I start out
across the fields for the station.

As I stood on the platform last Saturday evening devouring the latest war
news under the dim oil lamp, a voice behind me said, in broad rural accent,
"Bill, I say, W.G. is dead." At the word I turned hastily to another column
and found the news that had stirred him. And even in the midst of
world-shaking events it stirred me too. For a brief moment I forgot the war
and was back in that cheerful world where we used to be happy, where we
greeted the rising sun with light hearts and saw its setting without fear.