The films were mostly war views--cracking fine things from both the Russian and French fronts--and other patriotic subjects, but among them was one of those “blood-and-thunder thrillers” from California. I don’t recall exactly how the story went, but the thing that set me thinking was the way the heroine pinched the lights off the automobile they had kidnapped her in, and afterwards pawned them for enough to get a ticket home with. What was to prevent my going back and getting busy on my old “Caterpillar”? I asked myself. The magneto was worth something like a hundred dollars, and even if I had no chance to sell it, it was a pity to overlook so easy a bit of “strafing.” I concluded that my steps had been guided to that “movie” show by my lucky star, and promptly got up and started back for the road-making camp. On the way some tipsy villagers passed me singing the “Hymn of Hate,” the air and most of the words of which I had already picked up, and, out of sheer happiness at being again (if only for a few hours) at liberty, I joined in the explosive bursts of the chorus, booming out louder than any of them on “England!” Evidently, unconsciously, I had done quite the proper thing, for they raised their voices to match mine, gave a “Hoch” or two, and passed on without stopping. That also gave me an idea. During the whole following two weeks of my wanderings in Germany every man, woman or child that I passed upon the road, in light or in darkness, might have heard me humming “The Hymn of Hate,” “Die Wacht am Rhein,” or, after I had mastered it toward the end, “Deutschland über Alles.”