Page:Imre.pdf/89

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them, till we reached the Z... cross-road. We stepped out alone.

I did not break the silence as the noisy tram vanished, and the country's quietness closed us in.

"Well?" said Imre, after fully five minutes, its we approached the Z.... gateway.

"Well," I replied quite as laconically.

"Oh come, come," he began, even if it is I routing out of bed by sunrise tomorrow, to start in for all that P.. Camp drudgery, and you to go spinning along in the afternoon to England... why, what of it! We mustn't let the tragedy spoil our last afternoon. Eh?... Philosophy, philosophy, my dear Oswald! I have grown so trained, as a soldier, to having every sort of personal plan and pleasure, great or small, simply blown to the winds on half-an-hour's notice, that I have ceased to get into bad humour over any such contretemps. What profits it? Life isn't at all a plaything for a good lot of us, more's the pity! We've got to suffer and be strong; or else learn not to suffer. That on the whole is