and, besides, ninepence a night as billet-fee is not to be laughed
at. The upper class can easily bear the momentary inconvenience of
Tommy's company; the method of procedure of the very rich in regard to
billeting seldom varies--a room, stripped of all its furniture, fitted
with beds and pictures, usually of a religious nature, is given up
for the soldiers' benefit. The lady of the house, gifted with that
familiar ease which the very rich can assume towards the poor at a
pinch--especially a pinch like the present, when "all petty class
differences are forgotten in the midst of the national crisis"--may
come and talk to her guests now and again, tell them that they are
fine fellows, and give them a treat to light up the heavy hours that
follow a long day's drill in full marching order. But the middle
class, aloof and austere in its own seclusion, limited in means and
apartment space, cannot easily afford the time and care needed for the
housing of soldiers. State commands cannot be gainsaid, however, and
Tommy must be housed and fed in the country which he will shortly go
out and defend in the trenches of France or Flanders.

The number of men assigned to a house depends in a great measure on
the discretion of the householder and the temper of the billeting
officer. A gruff reply or a caustic remark from the former sometimes
offends; often the officer is in a hurry, and at such a time
disproportionate assortment is generally the result. A billeting
officer has told me that fifty per cent. of the householders whom he
has approached show manifest hostility to the housing of soldiers. But
the military authorities have a way of dealing with these people. On
one occasion an officer asked a citizen, an elderly man full of paunch
and English dignity, how many soldiers could he keep in his house.
"Well, it's like this--," the man began.