. Of course you know what that means.'

'There are always rumours afloat,' I said.

'They _might_ do it. Germany is capable of anything. But we could laugh
at that, but for this drink business. Think of it! Four million tons of
grain wasted in making drink since the beginning of the war, and there is
a talk about a shortage of bread. Three hundred thousand tons of sugar
have been used in making drink since the beginning of the war, and it is
difficult for people to buy sugar for the common necessities of life!
And that is not the worst of it. Why, man, you know what we have seen
during these last weeks,--all the horror, all the misery, all the
devilry! What has been at the bottom of nine-tenths of it? Night after
night, when we have come back from seeing what we _have_ seen, I have
been studying these questions, I have been reading hours while you
thought I was asleep. And I tell you, it would not be good for us to
have victory, until this thing is destroyed. And I doubt whether God
Almighty ever _will_ give us victory, until we have first of all
strangled once and for ever this drink fiend.'

'Don't talk nonsense! You are becoming a teetotal fanatic.'

'Think, Luscombe,' and he rose from his chair as he spoke, 'suppose God
were to give us victory to-night? Suppose the Germans were to cave in,
and tell us that we could dictate the terms of peace? Suppose our armies
were to come back while things are as they are, and while the thought and
feeling of the nation is as it is? Don't you see what would follow?
When trouble was first in the air, Asquith said that "war was hell let
loose." Would not hell be let loose if victory were to be declared?
Think of the drunkenness, the devilry, the bestiality that you and I saw!
Think what those streets round Waterloo station are like! Think of the
places we went to, and remember what took place! And these are grave
times,--times of struggle and doubt, and there are only a few odd
thousands home on leave. But what would happen, with all these
public-houses standing open, if hundreds of thousands, intoxicated with
the thought of victory, came back? You have told me what took place
during the Boer War; that would be nothing to the Bacchanalian orgies we
should see if victory were to come now.'

'Then you don't want victory?'

'Don't want victory! I long for it! Why--why I get almost mad as I
think of what is daily taking place. Here in England people don't rea