brings every week a pile of these F. P. tracts to sell at a halfpenny
each. I wouldn't give a halfpenny for the whole lot. It's silly
reading--that's what it is. There's no sale for it. The other day
Stevie got hold of one, and there was a story in it of a German soldier
officer tearing half-off the ear of a recruit, and nothing was done to
him for it. The brute! I couldn't do anything with Stevie that
afternoon. The story was enough, too, to make one's blood boil. But
what's the use of printing things like that? We aren't German slaves
here, thank God. It's not our business--is it?"

Mr Verloc made no reply.

"I had to take the carving knife from the boy," Mrs Verloc continued, a
little sleepily now. "He was shouting and stamping and sobbing. He
can't stand the notion of any cruelty. He would have stuck that officer
like a pig if he had seen him then. It's true, too! Some people don't
deserve much mercy." Mrs Verloc's voice ceased, and the expression of
her motionless eyes became more and more contemplative and veiled during
the long pause. "Comfortable, dear?" she asked in a faint, far-away
voice. "Shall I put out the light now?"

The dreary conviction that there was no sleep for him held Mr Verloc mute
and hopelessly inert in his fear of darkness. He made a great effort.

"Yes. Put it out," he said at last in a hollow tone.




CHAPTER IV