oment galling to
unthinking brains?

I am perfectly sure that if such considerations as these were laid
before any American soldier who still smarted under that taunt in London
streets, his good American sense, which is our best possession, would
grasp and accept the thing in its true proportions. He wouldn't want
to blot an Empire out because a handful of muckers called him names. Of
this I am perfectly sure, because in Paris streets it was my happy lot
four months after the Armistice to talk with many American soldiers,
among whom some felt sore about the French. Not one of these but saw
with his good American sense, directly I pointed certain facts out to
him, that his hostile generalization had been unjust. But, to quote the
oft-quoted Mr. Kipling, that is another story.

An American regiment just arrived in France was encamped for purposes of
training and experience next a British regiment come back from the front
to rest. The streets of the two camps were adjacent, and the Tommies
walked out to watch the Yankees pegging down their tents.

"Aw," they said, "wot a shyme you've brought nobody along to tuck you
in."

They made other similar remarks; commented unfavorably upon the
alignment; "You were a bit late in coming," they said. Of course our
boys had answers, and to these the Tommies had further answers, and
this encounter of wits very naturally led to a result which could not
possibly have been happier. I don't know what the Tommies expected the
Yankees to do. I suppose they were as ignorant of our nature as we of
theirs, and that they entertained preconceived notions. They suddenly
found that we were, once again to quote Mr. Kipling, "bachelors in
barricks most remarkable like" themselves. An American first sergeant
hit a British first sergeant. Instantly a thousand men were milling. For
thirty minutes they kept at it. Warriors reeled together and fell and
rose and got it in the neck and the jaw and the eye and the nose--and
all the while the British and American officers, splendidly discreet,
saw none of it. British soldiers were carried back to their streets,
still fighting, bunged Yankees staggered everywhere--but not an officer
saw any of it. Black eyes the next day, and other tokens, very plainly
showed who had been at this party. Thereafter a much better feeling
prevailed between Tommies and Yanks.

A more peaceful contact produced excellent consequences at an encampment
of Americans in England. Th