You may thank the jury that you are not sent to
prison, and your good fortune that you were not at the front when you
tried to commit this cowardly act. You are lucky to be alive."
A policeman pulled the little soldier by the arm; his drab figure with
eyes fixed and lustreless, passed down and away. From his very soul
Mr. Bosengate wanted to lean out and say: "Cheer up, cheer up! I
understand."
It was nearly ten o'clock that evening before he reached home, motoring
back from the route march. His physical tiredness was abated, for he had
partaken of a snack and a whisky and soda at the hotel; but mentally
he was in a curious mood. His body felt appeased, his spirit hungry.
Tonight he had a yearning, not for his wife's kisses, but for her
understanding. He wanted to go to her and say: "I've learnt a lot
to-day-found out things I never thought of. Life's a wonderful thing,
Kate, a thing one can't live all to oneself; a thing one shares with
everybody, so that when another suffers, one suffers too. It's come to
me that what one has doesn't matter a bit--it's what one does, and
how one sympathises with other people. It came to me in the most
extraordinary vivid way, when I was on that jury, watching that poor
little rat of a soldier in his trap; it's the first time I've ever
felt--the--the spirit of Christ, you know.
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