"But can you sleep after it?" said I.

"Blimy! yes," he replied; "I'm fairly--what is it?--eupeptic."

"It's all over with mankind," I muttered.

"It _is_ all over," he replied. "The Wenuses 'ave only lost one
Crinoline, just one, and they keep on coming; they're falling somewhere
every night. Nothing's to be done. We're beat!"

I made no answer. I sat staring, pulverised by the colossal
intellectuality of this untutored private. He had attended only three of
my lectures, and had never taken any notes.

"This isn't a war," he resumed; "it never was a war. These 'ere Wenuses
they wants to be Mas, that's the long and the short of it. Only----"

"Yes?" I said, more than ever impressed by the man's pyramidal
intuition.

"They can't stand the climate. They're too--what is it?--exotic."

We sat staring at each other.

"And what will they do?" I humbly asked, grovelling unscientifically at
his feet.

"That's what I've been thinking," said the gunner. "I ain't an
ornamental soldier, but I've a good deal of cosmic kinetic optimism, and