talked to them about that divine countryside, you found they didn't
give a rap for it and had never been a mile beyond the village.
But they admired greatly the sombre effect of a train going into
Marylebone station on a rainy day.

But it was the men who interested me most. Aronson, the
novelist, proved on acquaintance the worst kind of blighter. He
considered himself a genius whom it was the duty of the country to
support, and he sponged on his wretched relatives and anyone who
would lend him money. He was always babbling about his sins, and
pretty squalid they were. I should like to have flung him among a
few good old-fashioned full-blooded sinners of my acquaintance;
they would have scared him considerably. He told me that he
sought 'reality' and 'life' and 'truth', but it was hard to see how he
could know much about them, for he spent half the day in bed
smoking cheap cigarettes, and the rest sunning himself in the
admiration of half-witted girls. The creature was tuberculous in mind
and body, and the only novel of his I read, pretty well turned my
stomach. Mr Aronson's strong point was jokes about the war. If he
heard of any acquaintance who had joined up or was even doing
war work his merriment knew no bounds. My fingers used to itch
to box the little wretch's ears.

Letchford was a different pair of shoes. He was some kind of a
man, to begin with, and had an excellent brain and the worst
manners conceivable. He contradicted everything you said, and
looked out for an argument as other people look for their dinner.
He was a double-engined, high-speed pacificist, because he was the
kind of cantankerous fellow who must always be in a minority. if
Britain had stood out of the war he would have been a raving