time-honoured annual excursions to that modest watering-place and now
famous battlefield to excite the imagination, where "shells" could be
gathered of more historic value than the "common" ones by the sea.




CHAPTER IX

_Week ending 16th December, 1899_


The pleasures of Sunday were on the wane. The outbreak of war had
detracted little from its peace; but its dinners were--oh, so different!
Sunday had formerly been in the main an occasion of abandonment to the
joy of eating. The propriety of such a custom may be open to question;
but we had turned over a new leaf--until the perusal of the old one
would be feasible again. Our bad habits were compulsorily in abeyance:
the "good tables" were gone. The Simple Life is a splendid thing, but
unless _voluntarily_ adopted it sheds all its splendour. Delicacies had
long been falling victims to galloping consumption, and at this date had
totally succumbed to the disease. Worse still, the "necessaries" were
more or less infected, and disposed to go the way of the dainties. Meat
troubles maddened everybody. The beef was _all_ neck. Everybody said so.
Not one in ten, it seems, ever managed to secure a more tender morsel
from the flesh of these remarkable bovine _phenomena_ (for they _were_
oxen, not giraffes!) The meat was indiscriminately chopped up in the
shambles, and the odd one (in ten) who had not his legal complement of
"neck" alloted him was just as likely to be given for his share--to take
or leave--a nose, his due weight of tail, a teat or two, or a slab of