de of everything, how simple it
would be! It is the being a man as well which is so troublesome. A man
has feelings; it is wrong--wrong! There should be no connection whatever
between public duty and the feelings of a man. One ought to be able to
starve one's enemy without a quiver, to watch him drown without a wink.
In fact, one ought to be a German. We ought all to be Germans. Blink,
we ought all to be Germans, dear! I must steel myself!" And Mr.
Lavender wiped his forehead, for, though a great idea had come to him, he
still lacked the heroic savagery to put it into execution. "It is my
duty," he thought, "to cause those hungry, sad-looking men to follow me
and watch me eat my lunch. It is my duty. God give me strength! For
unless I make this sacrifice of my gentler nature I shall be unworthy to
call myself a public man, or to be reported in the newspapers. 'En
avant, de Bracy!'" So musing, he rose, and Blink with him. Crossing the
road, he clenched his fists, and said in a voice which anguish made
somewhat shrill:

"Are you hungry, my friends?"

The Germans stopped sifting gravel, looked up at him, and one of them
nodded.

"And thirsty?"

This time they all three nodded.

"Come on, then," said Mr. Lavender.

And he led the way back along the road, followed by Blink and the three
Germans. Arriving at the beech clump whose great trees were already
throwing shadows, denoting that it was long past noon, Mr. Lavender saw
that Joe had spread food on the smooth ground, and was, indeed, just
finishing his own repast.

"What is there to eat?" thought Mr. Lavender, with a soft of horror. "For
I feel as if I were about to devour a meal of human flesh." And he
looked round at the three Germans slouching up shamefacedly behind him.

"Sit down, please," he said. The three men sat down.

"Joe," said Mr. Lavender to his surprised chauffeur, "serve my lunch.
Give me a large helping, and a glass of ale." And, paler than his
holland dust-coat, he sat resolutely down on the bole of a beech, with
Blink on her haunches beside him. While Joe was filling a plate with
pigeon-pie and pouring out a glass of foaming Bass, Mr. Lavender stared
at the three Germans and suffered the tortures of the damned. "I will
not flinch," he thought; "God helping me, I certainly will not flinch.
Nothing shall prevent my going through with it." And his eyes, more
prominent than a hunted rabbit's, watched the approach of Joe with the
plate and glass.