ad a cast of countenance so unmistakably Teutonic that
Mr. Lavender stood still. They paid little or no attention to him,
however, but went on sadly and silently with their work, which was that
of sifting gravel. Mr. Lavender sat down on a milestone opposite, and
his heart contracted within him. "They look very thin and sad," he
thought, "I should not like to be a prisoner myself far from my country,
in the midst of a hostile population, without a woman or a dog to throw
me a wag of the tail. Poor men! For though it is necessary to hate the
Germans, it seems impossible to forget that we are all human beings. This
is weakness," he added to himself, "which no editor would tolerate for a
moment. I must fight against it if I am to fulfil my duty of rousing the
population to the task of starving them. How hungry they look already
--their checks are hollow! I must be firm. Perhaps they have wives and
families at home, thinking of them at this moment. But, after all, they
are Huns. What did the great writer say? 'Vermin--creatures no more
worthy of pity than the tiger or the rat.' How true! And yet--Blink!"
For his dog, seated on her haunches, was looking at him with that
peculiarly steady gaze which betokened in her the desire for food.
"Yes," mused Mr. Lavender, "pity is the mark of the weak man. It is a
vice which was at one time rampant in this country; the war has made one
beneficial change at least--we are moving more and more towards the manly
and unforgiving vigour of the tiger and the rat. To be brutal! This is
the one lesson that the Germans can teach us, for we had almost forgotten
the art. What danger we were in! Thank God, we have past masters again
among us now!" A frown became fixed between his brows. "Yes, indeed,
past masters. How I venerate those good journalists and all the great
crowd of witnesses who have dominated the mortal weakness, pity. 'The
Hun must and shall be destroyed--root and branch--hip and thigh--bag and
baggage man, woman, and babe--this is the sole duty of the great and
humane British people. Roll up, ladies and gentlemen, roll up! Great
thought--great language! And yet----"

Here Mr. Lavender broke into a gentle sweat, while the Germans went on
sifting gravel in front of him, and Blink continued to look up into his
face with her fixed, lustrous eyes. "What an awful thing," he thought,
"to be a man. If only I were just a public man and could, as they do,
leave out the human and individual si