Читать книгу The Oaken Heart онлайн

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"They've been a nuisance all my life, they Proosians and Rooshians," she said. "We ought to have done with they."

Olive and I agreed with her, and then went into the matter of the gas-mask. We found the trouble quite unsurmountable. Like the babies, she had not sufficient strength in her lungs to draw the air through the filter. She was not interested. It was the food question which was worrying her.

"Wars mean flat stomachs," she said.

I reassured her with honest conviction. "We learnt that lesson last time," I said. "The Government will have taken care of that."

She gave me a devastatingly shrewd glance and her boot-button eyes were as bright as a squirrel's.

"Think so?"

"Why yes," I said. "They're not barmy."

She sniffed. "Let's hope not," she said. "It 'on't be the first time if they are."

I gave up being silly after that and turned to something I did know a little about. I could see that the mask was dangerous and I was so frightened that she might put it on and suffocate if there was a scare, yet I felt I ought not to take it away. I began to explain this as tactfully as possible when I saw that she was laughing at me.