As it was, the only one who seemed within a hundred miles of Zeppelins was poor Mrs. Brash, who was explaining to Mrs. Ridley—
“It isn’t that I mind dying: we all have to die _some_ day: but I do prefer to die _whole_.”
Of course the doctor’s widow pooh-poohed this as nonsense, and asked severely what would become of surgeons if everybody felt like _that_!
Miss Thresher couldn’t find a suitable heading for her schedule, till Ursula suggested “Antizeptics.” Mrs. Ridley thought the medical profession might not approve of the unprofessional use of the word; but it was accepted by the majority, and then we all settled down wholeheartedly to attack the problem from every point of view—which included, among other things, borax as a preventive for moth, Queen Mary’s graciousness, a comparison of the respective merits of local butchers, economising on corsets, and the War Loan.
Perhaps you can’t see how these came in, but it was simple enough. Miss Quicker said that, after all, explosions that you thought were Zeppelins weren’t so bad if they enabled you to get such good coffee as mine; and might she have a third lump of sugar, please? it was such a treat to get a really sweet cup of coffee; she had given up sugar at home as she was economising on it.
Being the hostess, I couldn’t exactly tell her that I, too, was trying to economise on mine.
From the high price of sugar we naturally floated on to the ruinous tendencies of butcher’s meat, and Mrs. Brash explained the trouble she had with her butcher because he wouldn’t send home all the bones.
Mrs. Ridley had similar harrowments to relate about her butcher, but his vice took the form of sticking to the trimmings from the joints, which she was sure he sold at a good price for soap-making, now that fat was so scarce and soap likely to be dear. She knew it because—as she reminded us—she was the treasurer of the “Women’s League for Encouraging the Troops to Wash,” and it came very hard on their funds. What it would cost them for the cakes of soap they were going to send out no one would believe! (No, they hadn’t sent any yet; but of course they were going to, when they got enough members, and, by the way, would _I_ join?)
She didn’t mind a fair charge, of course (we all murmured agreement). War was war, and we must expect to pay something extra to help the King keep going; he had his family to provide for like any other man. Neither did she grudge one solitary penny that went to Lord Kitchener (hearty applause). No, indeed! But what made her blood boil was to feel that she was actually washing her hands with her own ribs—and at one-and-threepence-halfpenny a pound, too!