Читать книгу The Oaken Heart онлайн

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None of us had any clear idea of the official method of proofing a room at that time, but it required only a very elementary intelligence to see that the main idea was to stop every conceivable draught. P.Y.C. pointed this out, and Auburn, who knows all there is to know about draughts when the wind skates over the marshes from the North Sea, grasped the situation instantly.

Meanwhile the rest of us were letting people into the inner room, fifteen at a time, and fitting their masks. As we were doing it, it occurred to me that if the main purpose of the distribution was really to allay panic, as P.Y.C. had told me he thought it must be, it might possibly be a highly mistaken policy.

You cannot attempt to frighten folk off war for twenty years without your efforts taking some effect upon them, and the sudden present of a gas-mask will hardly wipe out all that in ten minutes.

It is a curious fact that nearly everybody's eyes are nice, and when you see them, startled and helpless, looking at you through a small mica window the effect is apt to be overwhelming. I obtained a lot of undeserved credit as a prophet by insisting in a burst of wishful thinking that there was not going to be any war for a bit.