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pace the room, making little battle noises with his mouth. Last Sunday
had seen his greatest victory. After much deliberation he had decided to
re-contest Waterloo. Dressed as Napoleon he placed himself at the head of the
French army of 600 flags. The thought of it had made him weak, he felt giddy
and sat down to massage his legs. After a measure of ginger wine, he felt
strong enough to continue. There followed a night of move and counter move.
Despite knockings on the walls from sleepless neighbours, he continued his
battle noises, thrusting flags hither and thither.
    He force-marched a platoon of French
Chasseurs till their points were blunt, he reinforced
Blucher with a secret supply of mercenary flags from
Ireland
and destroyed the Prussian
threat to his flank. At three o'clock he played his master stroke. He thrust a
white flag right into the English H.Q.
    Wellington and his staff were humbled
in the dust. To the accompaniment of the people around hammering with shoe
heels and brooms, he accepted Wellington's sword and surrender.
    Then victorious to
bed with a hot water bottle and a spoonful of Dr Clarkson-Spock's Chest Elixir. Next morning, dressed as a civilian, with very little resistance, Wellington's
conqueror was evicted by his landlady.
    Living in the y.m.c.a. curtailed his
activities, but the present job kept him in practice until conditions changed.
    After all, peace, as any good general
knew, couldn't last for ever, and the only way to en d wars was to have them.
    'Mr Haggerty, sir.' The febrile,
castrato voice of Mr Meredith was raised in protest. 'Mr Haggerty,' he repeated,
as he rose to his feet. One could see how very old he was, how very thin he
was, and falling back into his seat, how very weak he was. 'Mr Haggerty,' he
said for the third time, his pale hands flapping like mating butterflies, ' I
protest at -'.
    He stopped suddenly, eyes closed,
lids quivering, head back.
    'Ahhhhhh - ahhhhh - ' A pause, his face taking on that agonized look of the unborn
sneeze. 'Sorry about that,' he muttered, wiping his eyes. 'Now.' He became stronger. 'I was saying th-atishooooo!' thundered the unexpected;
'ah-tishoooo!!' The convulsion shot his dentures the length of the room. Thud! went his head on the table, 'atishoo!' down went the flags,
in sprang Mr Thwick. 'Oh!' shrieked Mrs Eels, a set of heavy dentures landing
on her lap. Meredith lay back, spit-speckled, white and exhausted, his face
folded in two.
    Mrs Eels returned his teeth on a
plate covered with her 'kerchief.
    'No thank you, dear,' said the still
muzzy Meredith, 'I couldn't eat another thing.'
    With his back to the map table and
accompanied by terrifying clicks and clacks, Meredith wrestled to replace his
prodigal dentures; finally, he turned to continue his speech, but remained
silent. Staring pop-eyed, he staggered round the room pointing to his mouth,
making mute sounds and getting redder and redder.
    'Ahhhh! I
see what the trouble is,' said Haggerty, pulling down Meredith's lower lip.
'He's put his choppers in upside down, someone fetch me a screwdriver.'
    Mr Meredith's aide-de-camp, Captain
Clarke, called for a short pause while ' our spokesman's dentures are
readjusted and his dignity restored'. A regular soldier, he was known to his
subordinates as 'Here comes the bastard now'.
    The phrenology of his mountainous
skull showed in contours through his military hair-cut. Erect and shining, his
immaculate uniform hid a mess of ragged underwear.
    'No, no, no,' said Mrs Angel Eels,
'we've had enough delays, we got to finish this partitioning -today!'
    There was a murmur of approval. She
glowed inwardly at their acceptance.
    She was a true daughter of the
revolution, a tireless worker for the Party, sexually frustrated and slightly
cross-eyed, the last two having something in common. At forty-one years of age,
she now sat bolt upright, her black dress fastened high under her neck down to
the floor, worn like a chastity armour that sealed her from all