The fewer that know, the better.

I'll be home round three." Once in the street, Cutty was besieged suddenly with the irresistible desire to mingle with the crowd over in the Avenue, to hear the military bands, the shouts, to witness the gamut of emotions which he knew would attend this epochal day.

Of course he would view it all from the aloof vantage of the historian, and store away commentaries against future needs.
And what a crowd it was! He was elbowed and pushed, jostled and trod on, carried into the surges, relegated to the eddies; and always the metallic taptap of steel-shod boots on the asphalt, the bayonets throwing back the radiant sunshine in sharp, clear flashes.

The keen, joyous faces of those boys.

God, to be young like that! To have come through that hell on earth with the ability still to smile! Cutty felt the tears running down his cheeks.