third morning after we had declared war on Germany Harburn,
Holsteig, and I went up to Town in the same carriage. Harburn and I
talked freely. But Holsteig, a fair, well-set-up man of about fifty,
with a pointed beard and blue eyes like his son, sat immersed in his
paper till Harburn said suddenly:

"I say, Holsteig, is it true that your boy was going off to join the
German army?"

Holsteig looked up.

"Yes," he said. "He was born in Germany; he's liable to military
service. But thank heaven, it isn't possible for him to go."

"But his mother?" said Harburn. "She surely wouldn't have let him?"

"She was very miserable, of course, but she thought duty came first."

"Duty! Good God!--my dear man! Half British, and living in this country
all his life! I never heard of such a thing!" Holsteig shrugged his
shoulders.

"In a crisis like this, what can you do except follow the law strictly?
He is of military age and a German subject. We were thinking of his
honour; but of course we're most thankful he can't get over to Germany."

"Well, I'm damned!" said Harburn. "You Germans are too bally
conscientious altogether."

Holsteig did not answer.

I travelled back with Harburn the same evening, and he said to me:

"Once a German, always a German. Didn't that chap Holsteig astonish you
this morning? In spite of living here so long and marrying a British
wife, his sympathies are dead German, you see."

"Well," I replied; "put yourself in his place."

"I can't; I could never have lived in Germany. I wonder," he added
reflectively, "I wonder if the chap's all right, Cumbermere?"

"Of course he's all right." Which was the wrong thing to say to Harburn
if one wanted to re-establish his confidence in the Holsteigs, as I
certainly did, for I liked them and was sure of their good faith. If I
had said: "Of course he's a spy"--I should have rallied all Harburn's
confidence in Holsteig, for he was naturally contradictious.

I only mention this little passage to show how early Harburn's thoughts
began to turn to the subject which afterwards completely absorbed and
inspired him till he died for his country.

I am not sure what paper first took up the question of interning all the
Huns; but I fancy the point was raised originally rather from the
instinct, deeply implanted in so many journals, for what would please
the public, than out of any deep animus. At all events I remember
meeting a sub-editor, who told me he had been ope