So men argued, surmised and predicted, talking and talking away in the endless hours that war gives for talking things out. When first they began to ask each other why so many lies were about, the common hypothesis, based on prior experience, was that they must be meant to save some "dud," up above, from losing his job. Then they came to admit there was something more in it than that. Lies had a good enough use for fooling the Germans. A beastly expedient, no doubt; acquiescence in lying does not come quite so easily to a workman of good character as it does to men of a class in which more numerous formal fibs are kept in use as social conveniences. Still, the men were not cranks enough to object. "They love not poison that do poison need." The men had hated, and still continued to hate, the use of poison gas, too. It was a scrub's trick, like vitriol-throwing. But who could have done without it, when once the Germans began? And now who could object to the use of this printed gas either? Could they, in this new warfare of propaganda, expect their country to go into action armed in a white robe of candour, and nothing besides, like a maskless man going forth to war against a host assisted by phosgene and all her foul sisters? It was a clear enough case: decency had to go under. But it was hard luck not to be able to know where you were. Where were they? If all the news they could check was mixed with lies, what about all the rest, which they were unable to check? Was it likely to be any truer? Why, we might be losing the war all the time, everywhere! Who could believe now what was said about our catching the submarines? Or about India's being all right? And how far would you have to go to get outside the lie belt? Could our case for going to war with the Germans be partly lies too? Beastly idea! How would it be, again, when we came to play these major tricks which the men were already discussing as likely to come into use? Suppose it became part of our game to publish, for some good strategical reason, news of a naval or military disaster to ourselves, the same not having happened? To take in the enemy this lie would have to take in our own people too; the ruse would be given away if the Government tried to tip so much as a wink to the British reader of the British Press. So men's friends at home would have the agonies of false alarms added to their normal war-time miseries, and wives might be widowed twice and mothers of one son made childless more than once before the truth finally overshadowed their lives.