"It is too exhausting."
"It is exhausting, but with my usual energy I do it all the same," said
Ernest, who is as a fact the world's champion lotus-eater. "Last night I
was picturing a little scene in the year 1940. Shall I tell you of it?"
And without waiting for my assent he proceeded:--
"The scene is laid in an undergraduate's rooms. Ernest Junior and James
Junior are discovered in _neglige_ attitudes and the conversation
proceeds something like this:--
"_Ernest Junior._ What are you going to do with yourself in the Vac.?
"_James Junior._ I shall go abroad, in spite of my choice of objectives
being so terribly restricted.
"_Ernest Junior._ Why restricted?
"_James Junior._ Well, I wouldn't say this to anybody else, but to tell
you the truth it is impossible for me to go to either France, Belgium or
Italy. You see my dear old father was in these countries during the
first Great War, and if I were so much as to mention them he'd never
stop talking. If I were to say that I proposed spending a fortnight in
the Ardennes it would let loose such a flood of reminiscence that I
should hardly get away before next term begins.
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