The Project Gutenberg EBook of Getting Together, by Ian Hay

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Title: Getting Together

Author: Ian Hay

Release Date: April 2, 2005 [EBook #15523]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GETTING TOGETHER ***

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[Illustration:]

GETTING TOGETHER

GETTING
TOGETHER

BY
IAN HAY

Author of "The First Hundred Thousand,"
"A Safety Match," etc.

GARDEN CITY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE
& COMPANY

BOSTON
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
COMPANY

1917

Copyright, 1917, by
IAN HAY BEITH

_All rights reserved, including that of
translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian_

CHAPTER ONE

For several months it has been the pleasant duty of the writer of the
following deliverance to travel around the United States, lecturing
upon sundry War topics to indulgent American audiences. No one--least
of all a parochial Briton--can engage upon such an enterprise for long
without beginning to realize and admire the average American's amazing
instinct for public affairs, and the quickness and vitality with which
he fastens on and investigates every topic of live interest.

Naturally, the overshadowing subject of discussion to-day is the War,
and all the appurtenances thereof. The opening question is always the
same. It lies about your path by day in the form of a newspaper man,
or about your bed by night in the form of telephone call, and is
simply:

"When is the War going to end?"

(One is glad to note that no one ever asks _how_ it is going to end:
that seems to be settled.)

The simplest way of answering this question is to inform your
inquisitor that so far as Great Britain is concerned the War has only
just begun--began, in fact, on the first of July, 1916; when the
British Army, equipped at last, after stupendous exertions, for a
grand and prolonged offensive, went over the parapet, shoulder to
shoulder with the soldiers of France, and captured the hitherto
impregnable chain of fortresses which crowned the ridge overlooking
the S