"No, sir?"

"By the way, there was a wonderful leader on potatoes yesterday. We must
dig up the garden. Do you know what the subsoil is?"

"Brickbats and dead cats, I expect, sir."

"Ah! We shall soon improve that. Every inch of land reclaimed is a nail
in the coffin of our common enemies."

And going over to a bookcase, Mr. Lavender took out the third from the
top of a pile of newspapers. "Listen!" he said. "'The problem before
us is the extraction of every potential ounce of food. No half measures
must content us. Potatoes! Potatoes! No matter how, where, when the
prime national necessity is now the growth of potatoes. All Britons
should join in raising a plant which may be our very salvation.

"Fudge!" murmured Mrs. Petty.

Mr. Lavender read on, and his eyes glowed.

"Ah!" he thought, "I, too, can do my bit to save England.... It needs
but the spark to burn away the dross of this terrible horse-sense which
keeps the country back.

"Mrs. Petty!" But Mrs. Petty was already not.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .