When will he shout for the glove
And the spear of the verderer?
Where is she gone whom he called his Love?
For I cannot follow her.

* * * * *

SECOND CHILDHOOD.

I must make a confession to someone. I have wasted raw material which
is a substitute for something else indispensable for defeating the
Hun, and probably traitor is the right name for me. Let me explain.

Somewhere in Nutshire there is a place called Cotterham. It is one of
those little villages which somehow nobody expects to meet nowadays
outside the pages of a KATE GREENAWAY painting book. There is the
village green, with its pond and geese and absurdly pretty cottages
with gardens full of red bergamot and lads'-love, and a little
school where the children are still taught to curtsey and pull their
forelocks when the Squire goes by. And beyond the Green, at the end
of Plough Lane and after you have crossed Leg-o'-Mutton Common, you
come to Down Wood, and if you don't meet Little Red Riding-Hood on
the way or come on Snow White and her seven dwarfs, that is only
because you must have taken the wrong turning after you came through
the kissing-gate at the bottom of Lovers' Lane. I am a native of
Cotterham, and in my more reflective moments I wonder why such an
idyllic place should have produced anything so unromantic as myself,
His Majesty's Deputy Assistant Acting Inspector for All Sorts of
Unexpected Explosives. Cotterham still has a large place in my
affections, and it gave me a considerable shock the other day to get