'Don't go an' git dizzy on this 'appy day,' Joshua went on with mock gravity. 'Don't go gittin' rattled! Carn't you see w'en a bloke's 'avin' a joke like?'
'It ain't no subjec' ter make fun o',' Pincher answered, rather mollified. 'But, any'ow, s'posin' I does marry 'er, wot relation would you be ter me? That's wot I wants ter know.'
'I reckons I'd be yer step-farther-in-lor,' Joshua answered after due consideration. 'Leastways, that's 'ow I looks at it. I'll arsk th' missis, though. Come an' 'ave a wet.'
Pincher, nothing loath, acquiesced. They went off arm-in-arm.
It all happened very suddenly. The fleet had been reviewed by his Majesty the King at Spithead in the middle of July, and after this certain exercises were carried out in lieu of the usual summer manoeuvres. They did not last very long, however, for on Friday, 24th July, the _Belligerent_ arrived at her home port to effect some necessary repairs, and, incidentally, to give four days' leave to her men; so the next morning half the ship's company, including Pincher, left for their homes.
Now the Martin family, being country-people, did not worry their heads with newspapers on weekdays. For one thing, the papers cost money and were difficult to get; and, for another, they had little time to read them. Mr Martin usually bought _Reynolds's Weekly_ on Sunday; but on that particular Sunday, 26th July, there was nothing in it to give rise to any anxiety. He did notice that there was some sort of trouble between Austria and Serbia; but that could not possibly affect his weekly wages, and beyond remarking casually to his wife that 'them there Balkan nations is 'oly 'orrors for gettin' up rows,' he paid no further attention to it.
On the following Tuesday, 28th July, at ten-forty-three A.M. precisely, Pincher left the cottage to buy a packet of cigarettes at the village shop. Albert, his youngest brother, aged five, clutching a penny with which he proposed to purchase two sticks of glutinous but very succulent pink nougat, accompanied him. They were away exactly fourteen minutes, and on their return found Mrs Martin, fresh from her wash-tub and with her arms covered in soapsuds to the elbows, bubbling over with suppressed excitement. She was gazing in a perturbed manner at a telegram; for, to the Martin _ménage_, the arrival of an orange envelope was a matter of some importance. It generally spelt trouble. The last one had arrived over a year before to announce that Mrs Martin's sister had been run over by an omnibus.