And there is another point which then kept me from giving way any further to my dreams of retirement from the theatre. Real life, so calm for the most part and so regular, is but a dull thing to those who live a fictitious life on the boards, in the midst of excitements and honour and crimes, with murder and sudden death awaiting them, as it were, round the corner. After _Hamlet_ has seen his mother's death, has killed _Laertes_ and the _King_ and has himself expired, what is it to him to come to life again and to sit down, without his royal trappings to a supper of sausage and potatoes, while his wife sits by and darns his stockings and the baby begins to cry in its cot? So thought I, and resolved to continue my career of acting, though I acknowledged that some day, perhaps, in the very distant future, retirement might have its attractions. All this was before the War broke out. When that happened I, like the rest, was seized and thrust into a uniform and made to remember my drill and was presented with a rifle and a bayonet. Finally, with my regiment I was marched off to the Front in France, where I still linger in daily expectation of death. Dreadful things have I seen, men blown into nothingness by shells, men pierced through and through by the steel, women murdered and worse than murdered, and children crushed under fallen walls--sights I cannot bear to think of, though they force themselves upon me and murder sleep. I was, perhaps, unduly contemptuous of real life, but now I abhor it and try in vain to put it away from me. I desire with a full-hearted longing to return to that life of imagination where the most dreadful bloodshed ends at about eleven o'clock every evening, without leaving any impression on those who take part. Yes, give me again the life of the theatre and remove far away this brutal scenery of trenches and shells and bombs and quick-firers and men summoned from peace and ease to cut one another's throats because a histrion KAISER has so willed it and none of his subjects dared to say him nay. To get away from this and never to return to it I would willingly consent to play the _First Murderer_ in _Macbeth_ for the remainder of my life. It would be an innocent and an honourable occupation compared with what I am forced day by day and night by night to endure. Yours, in respectful despair, WOLFGANG OFFENMAUL. * * * * * [Illustration: ANOTHER CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR. Mr. McKenna. "PREMIUM BONDS TO HELP TO WIN THE WAR! OH, MY DEAR FRIENDS! THINK OF OUR MORAL PRINCIPLES!"] * * * * * THE WATCH DOGS. XXXVI.