AUGUSTUS. I addressed a meeting here last night--went straight to
the platform from the train. I wrote to you that I should expect
you to be present and report yourself. Why did you not do so?

THE CLERK. The police wouldn't let me on the platform.

AUGUSTUS. Did you tell them who you were?

THE CLERK. They knew who I was. That's why they wouldn't let me
up.

AUGUSTUS. This is too silly for anything. This town wants waking
up. I made the best recruiting speech I ever made in my life; and
not a man joined.

THE CLERK. What did you expect? You told them our gallant fellows
is falling at the rate of a thousand a day in the big push. Dying
for Little Pifflington, you says. Come and take their places, you
says. That ain't the way to recruit.

AUGUSTUS. But I expressly told them their widows would have
pensions.

THE CLERK. I heard you. Would have been all right if it had been
the widows you wanted to get round.

AUGUSTUS [rising angrily]. This town is inhabited by dastards. I
say it with a full sense of responsibility, DASTARDS! They call
themselves Englishmen; and they are afraid to fight.