"Payper! Special! Ultimatium by Krooger! Declaration of war!" Soames

bought the paper. There it was in the stop press...! His first thought

was: 'The Boers are committing suicide.' His second: 'Is there anything

still I ought to sell?' If so he had missed the chance--there would

certainly be a slump in the city to-morrow. He swallowed this thought

with a nod of defiance. That ultimatum was insolent--sooner than let it

pass he was prepared to lose money. They wanted a lesson, and they would

get it; but it would take three months at least to bring them to heel.

There weren't the troops out there; always behind time, the Government!

Confound those newspaper rats! What was the use of waking everybody up?

Breakfast to-morrow was quite soon enough. And he thought with alarm of

his father. They would cry it down Park Lane. Hailing a hansom, he got

in and told the man to drive there.

James and Emily had just gone up to bed, and after communicating the

news to Warmson, Soames prepared to follow. He paused by after-thought

to say:

"What do you think of it, Warmson?"

The butler ceased passing a hat brush over the silk hat Soames had taken

off, and, inclining his face a little forward, said in a low voice:

"Well, sir, they 'aven't a chance, of course; but I'm told they're very

good shots. I've got a son in the Inniskillings."

"You, Warmson? Why, I didn't know you were married."

"No, sir. I don't talk of it. I expect he'll be going out."

The slighter shock Soames had felt on discovering that he knew so little

of one whom he thought he knew so well was lost in the slight shock of

discovering that the war might touch one personally. Born in the year

of the Crimean War, he had only come to consciousness by the time the

Indian Mutiny was over; since then the many little wars of the British

Empire had been entirely professional, quite unconnected with the

Forsytes and all they stood for in the body politic. This war would

surely be no exception. But his mind ran hastily over his family. Two of

the Haymans, he had heard, were in some Yeomanry or other--it had always

been a pleasant thought, there was a certain distinction about the

Yeomanry; they wore, or used to wear, a blue uniform with silver about

it, and rode horses. And Archibald, he remembered, had once on a time

joined the Militia, but had given it up because his father, Nicholas,

had made such a fuss about his 'wasting his time peacocking about in a

uniform.' Recently he had heard somewhere that young Nicholas' eldest,

very young Nicholas, had become a Volunteer. 'No,' thought Soames,

mounting the stairs slowly, 'there's nothing in that!'




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