"Of course he has. And if we get him another, then he’d have two, and that means six less Germans some day, very likely."
"We want a testimonial that has nothing to do with actual battle," he said. "The War won’t last for ever, and we ought to buy something useful, and also ornamental, that Hutchings will be able to employ in everyday life when all is over. We want something that will catch his eye a hundred times a day and pleasantly remind him and his family of his heroic past--and us."
But I argued that practical comforts at the critical moment would be far better than an heirloom for future use, because if he didn’t have the mouth-guard and filter and so on, he might die; and where would the heirloom come in then?
"What’s the good of knowing you’ve got a silver ink-pot, or a tea-kettle, or a cellaret full of whisky at home, when you’re perishing for a wholesome drink on the field?"
And Barrington said that was petty, and so did Thwaites. They seemed to think that the remembrance of our testimonial safe at home would carry Hutchings safely through all the horrors of the campaign.
It turned out that I had rather touched up Barrington, for he had actually been thinking about a silver ink-pot, and Thwaites had been thinking about a cellaret with three bottles of various spirits; but I told them flatly I didn’t agree with them. Then they asked Sutherland his idea, and he said it wasn’t so much what we should like as what Hutchings would.
"Perhaps a very fine meerschaum pipe, mounted in silver with an inscription, would do, because there you have a creature comfort of the first class and also a testimonial which would not wear out. And a pipe would be far more to Hutchings, either in war or peace, than an ink-pot, or, in fact, anything of that sort."
"Why not get the man a sword? He could use it in the War, and, if all went well, he could hang it up in his home afterwards; and if there was blood on it, then he’d have great additional pleasure every time he looked at it. And so would his family."
Barrington rather liked the sword; but he said classy swords were frightfully expensive, and he doubted whether we should run to it. Then the committee broke up, to meet again when we found how the subscriptions came in.