Lads in Edwardian drapes and peacock-feather waistcoats and they eying me, a relic of the past. ‘Cosh-boys’, they call themselves. Look at that fellow there. Grease in his barnet and the aviator spectacles all black as a Sunday in Lent. But the street is crowded, Molly, there is nothing he could do. And don’t be meeting his gaze for that’s only seeking troubles, and if you seek them, you will always find them. My son. In an aeroplane. Over northern Germany. Those who I fight I do not hate. Those I defend I do not love. Somewhere in the room all his copybooks from school. But we must not give in to weakness. The world is full of blessings. To be alive at this time, when the cruel war is over and nobody’s son is being ordered to die, and if the manners are queer and the slangs are gone strange and the fashions eccentric and the music discordant, what matter, after all? It was surely always thus. The young must be permitted to come into their force. They do not mean to look at one so harshly, should not be misinterpreted.
