I sent off Marigold in search of a wheelbarrow.

Then, having Timbs to myself, I summoned him to my side.
"Do you hold with a man sacrificing his life for his country ?" He looked at me for a moment or two, in his dour, crabbed way.
"I've got a couple of sons in France, trying their best to do it," he replied.
That was the first I had ever heard of it.

I had always regarded him as a gnarled old bachelor without human ties.

Where he had kept the sons and the necessary mother I had not the remotest notion.
"You're proud of them ?" "I am." "And if one was killed, would you grudge his grave a few roses?
For the sake of him wouldn't you sacrifice a world of roses ?" His manner changed.

"I don't understand, sir.