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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
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