brooded. It was under these circumstances, that I
heard the phrase for the first time--_the last war_.

The street was blocked with a gaping crowd. All the faces were raised
to an open window, two storeys up, from which the frame had been taken
out. Inside the building one could hear the pounding of machinery,
for it was here that the most important paper of Quebec was printed.
Across a huge white sheet a man on a hanging platform painted the
latest European cables. A cluster of electric lights illuminated him
strongly; but he was not the centre of the crowd's attention. In the
window stood another man. Like myself he was waiting for his ship
to sail, but not to England--to France. He was a returning French
reservist. Across the many miles of ocean the hand of duty had
stretched and touched him; he was ecstatically glad that he was
wanted. In those first days this ecstasy of gladness was a little hard
to understand. Thank God we all share it instinctively now. He was
speaking excitedly, addressing the crowd. They cheered him; they were
in a mood to cheer anybody. His face was thin with earnestness; he
was a spirit-man. He waved aside their applause with impatience. He
was trying to inspire them with his own intensity. In the intervals
between the shouting, I caught some of his words, "I am setting out
to fight the last war--the war of humanity which will bring universal
peace and friendship to the world."

A sailor behind me spat. He was drunk and feeling the need of
sympathy. He began to explain to me the reason. He was a fireman on
one of the steamers in the basin and a reservist in the British Navy.
He had received his orders that day to report back in England for
duty; he knew that he was going to be torpedoed on his voyage across
the Atlantic. How did he know? He had had a vision. Sailors always had
visions before they were drowned. It was to combat this vision that he
had got drunk.

I shook him off irritably. One didn't require the superstitions of an
alcoholic imagination to emphasize the new terror which had overtaken
the world. There was enough of fear in the air already. All this
spurious gaiety--what was it? Nothing but the chatter of lonely
children who were afraid to listen to the silence--afraid lest they
might hear the creaking footstep of death upon the stairs. And these
candles, lighting up the fringes of the night--they were nothing but a
vain pretence that the darkness had not gathered.

But th