coronation week, Lester Ford went to Clarkson's to rent a
monk's robe in which to appear at the Shakespeare Ball, and
while the assistant departed in search of the robe, Ford was
left alone in a small room hung with full-length mirrors and
shelves, and packed with the uniforms that Clarkson rents for
Covent Garden balls and amateur theatricals. While waiting,
Ford gratified a long, secretly cherished desire to behold
himself as a military man, by trying on all the uniforms on
the lower shelves; and as a result, when the assistant
returned, instead of finding a young American in English
clothes and a high hat, he was confronted by a German officer
in a spiked helmet fighting a duel with himself in the
mirror. The assistant retreated precipitately, and Ford,
conscious that he appeared ridiculous, tried to turn the
tables by saying, " Does a German uniform always affect a
Territorial like that?"

The assistant laughed good-naturedly.

"It did give me quite a turn," he said. "It's this talk of
invasion, I fancy. But for a fact, sir, if I was a Coast
Guard, and you came along the beach dressed like that, I'd
take a shot at you, just on the chance, anyway."

"And, quite right, too!" said Ford.

He was wondering when the invasion did come whether he would
stick at his post in London and dutifully forward the news to
his paper, or play truant and as a war correspondent watch
the news in the making. So the words of Mr. Clarkson's