"An enemy came flying over Berlin--and this is a true story. I can remember when it happened. The roof guard shot at him and winged his plane, and he came down in his parachute, which missed the roof of the city and fell to the earth outside the walls but within the first ring of the ray defences. He knew that he could not pass beyond this and he wandered about for many days within range of the glasses of the roof guards. When he was nearly starved he came near the wall and waved his white kerchief, which meant he wished to surrender and be taken into the city." At this point one of the boys tittered, and the master stopped his story long enough to mark a credit for this first laugh. "As the enemy aviator continued to walk about waving his cowardly flag another enemy plane saw him and let down a line, but the roof guards shelled and destroyed the plane. Then other planes came and attempted to pick up the man with lines. In all seven planes were destroyed in attempting to rescue one man. It was very foolish and very comical. At last the eighth plane came and succeeded in reaching the man a line without being winged. The roof batteries shot at the plane in vain--then the roof gunners became filled with good German hate, and one of them aimed, not at the plane, but at the man swinging on the unstable wire line two thousand metres beneath. The shell exploded so near that the man disappeared as by magic, and the plane flew off with the empty dangling line." As the story was finished the boys who had listened with varying degrees of mechanical smiles now broke out into a chorus of raucous laughter. It was a forced unnatural laughter such as one hears from a bad actor attempting to express mirth he does not feel. When the boys had ceased their crude guffaws the master asked, "Why did you laugh?" "Because," answered Conrad, "the enemy were so stupid as to waste seven planes trying to save one man." "That is fine," said the master; "we should always laugh when our enemy is stupid, because then he suffers without knowing why he suffers. If the enemy were not stupid they would cease fighting and permit us to rule them and breed the stupidity out of them, as it has been bred out of the Germans by our good old God and the divine mind of the House of Hohenzollern." The boys were now dismissed for a recess and went into the gymnasium to play leap frog. But the sad-eyed Bruno promptly returned and saluted. "You may speak," said the master. "I wish, Herr Teacher," said Bruno, "to petition you for permission to fight with Conrad." "But you must not begin a fight," admonished the master, "unless you can attach to your opponent the odium of causing the strife." "But he did cause the odium," said Bruno; "he stuck it into my leg with a pin while I was reciting. The Herr Father saw him do it, "--and the boy turned his eyes towards me in sad and serious appeal. The schoolmaster glanced at me inquiringly and I corroborated the lad's accusation.