This afternoon it was clear that Josiah was pleading Melia's case. There was an excellent billet waiting for the Corporal at Jackson and Holcroft's if he cared to take it. They offered short hours and good pay. Why not? He was still going a trifle lame; the Medical Board was not likely to raise any objection; and it would be a relief to Melia who ought to be considered now.
The Corporal, however, shifted uneasily in his chair. All through luncheon he had seemed terribly gloomy; and, if anything, his father-in-law's arguments had deepened the clouds. One reason was, perhaps, that Josiah himself was terribly gloomy. The whole country was terribly gloomy. It had suddenly swung back to the phase of August, 1914.
The simple truth was that disaster was in the air. A crushing blow had fallen, a blow doubly cruel because so long foreseen and, therefore, to be parried if not actually prevented.
"Over a wide front the British Army is beaten!" Such was the enemy message to the Sunday papers. "Ninety thousand prisoners and an enormous booty have been taken!" And the greatest disaster in the long history of British arms was confirmed by the artless official meiosis. "Our Fourth and Fifth Armies have retired to a previously prepared position." It omitted to state that the position was some thirty miles nearer Paris, but that fact received confirmation from the French communiqué in the next column, "The capital is being bombarded by long-range guns."
No day could have been less propitious for Melia. And after the Mayor had sat smoking a few minutes with his gloomy son-in-law he appeared to realize the state of the case. As the Corporal drew at his cigar in a silence that was almost morose, Josiah's own thoughts and feelings began to take color from their surroundings. He lapsed into silence also. It seemed to come home to him all at once and for the first time in his life that he had been guilty of impertinence. This little man with his bloodshot eyes and few struggling wisps of gray hair, with his twitching hands and his air of smoldering rage, had been through it. Even to have been Mayor of Blackhampton three years running was very little by comparison. Josiah was man enough to feel keenly annoyed for having allowed his tongue so free a rein.