peak, within arm's-length of Germany, have
long seen the danger, and feared it. Every German is taught that the
world is his for the taking. Every German is encouraged in the belief
that the national virtue of organised effort is the one and only means
of commanding success. Thus, the State is everything, the individual
nothing. But the State rewards the individual for services rendered. The
German dotes on titles and decorations, and what easier way of earning
both than to supply information deemed valuable by the various State
departments? Plenty of wealthy Germans in Belgium paid their own spies,
and used the knowledge so gained for their private ends as well as for
the benefit of the State. During the past twenty years the whole German
race has become a most efficient secret society, its members being
banded together for their common good, and leagued against the rest of
the world. The German never loses his nationality, no matter how long he
may dwell in a foreign country. My own church claims to be Catholic and
universal, yet I would not trust a German colleague in any matter where
the interests of his country were at stake. The Germans are a race
apart, and believe themselves superior to all others. There was a time,
in my youth, when Prussia was distinct from Saxony, or Wuertemberg,
or Bavaria. That feeling is dead. The present Emperor has welded his
people into one tremendous machine, partly by playing upon their vanity,
partly by banging the German drum during his travels, but mainly by
dangling before their eyes the reward that men have always found
irresistible--the spoliation of other lands, the prospect of sudden
enrichment. Every soldier marching past this house at the present
moment hopes to rob Belgium and France. And now England is added to the
enticing list of well-stocked properties that may be lawfully burgled.
I am no prophet, monsieur. I am only an old man who has watched the
upspringing of a new and terrible force in European politics. I may live
an hour or ten years; but if God spares me for the latter period I shall
see Germany either laid in the dust by an enraged world or dominating
the earth by brutal conquest."

But for the outbreak of the war Dalroy would have passed the
"interpreter" test in German some few weeks later. He had spent his
"language leave" in Berlin, and was necessarily familiar with German
thought and literature. Often had he smiled at Teutonic boastfulness.
Now the simple