Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman
for enlightenment. When it came, I was beside myself with anger. The term is American and applies to a man who “dodges” the “draft”, which is their word for conscription. A wickeder or more reckless charge could not be made. Will applied for a commission .within the first year and a half of the war. “You can try,” I said, “but I don’t think the doctor will pass you.” He did, however, and Will served for three years with great distinction and was quite invaluable to his general. It was the fashion at one time to sneer at the staff, but I have yet to learn that war can be carried on without one; and I sometimes wonder whether the sneers were not mingled with a little envy on the part of men who were not efficient enough to be selected.
“Culroyd, you have no business to say that,” I told him.
“Will doesn’t deny it,” he said.
And then I thought my boy shewed both wit and dignity.
“If any one thought it worth while to call me a homicidal maniac,” he said, “I doubt if I should bother to deny it.”
“They’ll never accuse you of even a tendency to homicide—even in war,” muttered Culroyd, but he shewed that he had got the worst of it.
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