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"It was a bit optimistic to go to France for a quiet fishing holiday, in April of this year."

"Well, I suppose it was," he replied thoughtfully. "But I wanted to go."

* * * * *

He said he had been very restless, that he had suffered from an urge, an imperious need to get away and to go and do something different. He was a little hesitant about his reasons for wanting to get away so badly, but then he told me that he hadn't been able to get a job to do in the war.

They wouldn't have him in anything, I imagine because he was very nearly seventy years old. When war broke out he tried at once to get into the Special Constables; with his knowledge of the Law it seemed to him that police duty would suit him best. The police thought otherwise, having no use for constables at his age. Then he tried to become an Air Raid Warden, and suffered another disappointment. And then he tried all sorts of things.

It's very difficult for old people, for old men particularly, in a war. They cannot grow accustomed to the fact that there is little they can do to help; they suffer from frustration, and the war eats into them. Howard fell into the habit of ordering his life by the news bulletins upon the wireless. Each day he got up in time to hear the seven o'clock news, had his bath, shaved, and dressed and was down to hear the eight o'clock, and went on so all day till after the midnight news, when he retired to bed. Between the bulletins he worried about the news, and read every paper he could lay his hands upon till it was time to turn the wireless on again.