proceeds something like this:--

"_Ernest Junior._ What are you going to do with yourself in the Vac.?

"_James Junior._ I shall go abroad, in spite of my choice of objectives
being so terribly restricted.

"_Ernest Junior._ Why restricted?

"_James Junior._ Well, I wouldn't say this to anybody else, but to tell
you the truth it is impossible for me to go to either France, Belgium or
Italy. You see my dear old father was in these countries during the
first Great War, and if I were so much as to mention them he'd never
stop talking. If I were to say that I proposed spending a fortnight in
the Ardennes it would let loose such a flood of reminiscence that I
should hardly get away before next term begins.

"He gets a little confused too at times. He told me the other day a long
story about the relief of Ypres, and he also boasted of having himself
captured a large number of Turks on the Somme.

"And it isn't only that. My mother was a V.A.D. in France, you know. And
when the old man had done talking of Ypres and the Somme she'd begin
about Rouen and Etaples."

I laughed, but without mirth, for I did not really think this at all
funny. And after all I might have said just the same about Ernest, if
only I'd thought of it first.

* * * * *