"I'm sorry. He was a fine fellow. So was my boy. We're in the same
boat, Perkins."

Perkins assented. "It sort of knocks one's life to bits, doesn't
it?" said he. "We've nothing left."

"We have our country."

"Our country isn't our only son," said the other dully.

"No. She's our mother," said Sir Anthony.

"Isn't that a kind of abstraction?"

"Abstraction!" cried Sir Anthony, indignantly. "You must be
imbibing the notions of that poisonous beast Gedge."

Gedge was a smug, socialistic, pacifist builder who did not hold
with war--and with this one least of all, which he maintained was
being waged for the exclusive benefit of the capitalist classes.
In the eyes of the stalwarts of Wellingsford, he was a horrible
fellow, capable of any stratagem or treason.

Perkins flushed. "I've always voted conservative, like my father
before me, Sir Anthony, and like yourself I've given my boy to my
country. I've no dealings with unpatriotic people like Gedge, as
you know very well."

"Of course I do," cried Sir Anthony. "And that's why I ask you
what the devil you mean by calling England an abstraction. For us,