CHAPTER VII
“SI VIEILLESSE POUVAIT”
Mr John Galt had reason to seek refreshment, for he had had an eventful afternoon.
He had spent two days not unpleasantly in the camp of that wing of Juventus which Ashie commanded. (“Wing” was their major unit of division: they borrowed their names from the Romans, and Ashie was “Praefectus Alae.”) He was a prisoner, but in honourable captivity—an English friend of the Commander, detained not because he was hostile, but because of the delicacy of the situation. Ashie introduced him to the subordinate officers, and he found them a remarkable collection. There were old soldiers among them who attended to the military side, but there were also a number of young engineers and business men and journalists, who all had their special duties. Juventus, it ap
