The War in the Air Part 37

"There, down there, where all that rus' looks so red and bright, that's the gas-works."

"What's gas?" asked the little boy.

"Oh, a hairy sort of nothin' what you put in balloons to make 'em go up.

And you used to burn it till the 'lectricity come."

The little boy tried vainly to imagine gas on the basis of these particulars. Then his thoughts reverted to a previous topic.

"But why didn't they end the War?"

"Obstinacy. Everybody was getting 'urt, but everybody was 'urtin' and everybody was 'igh-spirited and patriotic, and so they smeshed up things instead. They jes' went on smeshin'. And afterwards they jes' got desp'rite and savige."

"It ought to 'ave ended," said the little boy.

"It didn't ought to 'ave begun," said old Tom, "But people was proud.

People was la-dy-da-ish and uppish and proud. Too much meat and drink they 'ad. Give in--not them! And after a bit n.o.body arst 'em to give in.

n.o.body arst 'em...."

He sucked his old gums thoughtfully, and his gaze strayed away across the valley to where the shattered gla.s.s of the Crystal Palace glittered in the sun. A dim large sense of waste and irrevocable lost opportunities pervaded his mind. He repeated his ultimate judgment upon all these things, obstinately, slowly, and conclusively, his final saying upon the matter.

"You can say what you like," he said. "It didn't ought ever to 'ave begun."

He said it simply--somebody somewhere ought to have stopped something, but who or how or why were all beyond his ken.