Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3817/The Truce
Peace reigns in the club-house on the links. The young men have nearly all gone, and Morris, our veteran "plus two" member, who generally only condescends to go round with the pro. and one or two choice players, is eager for a match with anyone. Only you must play for five shillings for his wife's branch of the Red Cross Society.
In the smoke-room over our pipes—cigars are considered wasteful and bad form—the old conversational warriors look at one another. I glance across at Sellars, a member of that loathsome, I should say highly admirable, institution, the National Liberal Club. It is not six weeks since I denounced him as a pestilent traitor because he demanded, for some reason that escapes me, the blockade of a city called Belfast. And, if I remember, he alluded to me as a traitorous tamperer with the Army. But now I praise the admirable patriotism of John Redmond; I eulogise the financial genius of Lloyd George; I grow fervid as I rhapsodise about Winston.
Then Sellars interposes. "My dear fellow, why do you forget the splendid abnegation of Sir Edward Carson? As for Lloyd George he may have done well, but hasn't he Austen at his elbow all the time? Talk about Winston if you like, but, after all, he has only muzzled the German fleet. F. E. Smith has done a far more wonderful thing. He has muzzled the British Press."
Peace! It is wonderful. Only at the back my mind there is one sad thought which I strive to put away from me. Suppose a General Election comes whilst the war is still on. I, as a patriot, shall have to vote for the splendid Government. It will be Sellars' duty and joy to support our splendid Opposition. And, if we all act in the same way, we shall have those wretched—what funny slips one's pen makes!—those adorable Radicals back in power for another five years.
But when the war is over and we see a free Europe I promise myself one reward. The night when peace is proclaimed I shall seek out Sellars and tell him just what I think about Lloyd George; and I haven't the slightest doubt that he will celebrate the occasion by some venomous abuse of Bonar Law.
You see at present we are handicapped; we are just Englishmen.