My friend Harburn is, or rather was, a Northumbrian, or some kind of Northerner, a stocky man of perhaps fifty, with close-clipped grizzled hair and moustache, and a deep-coloured face. He was a neighbour of mine in the country, and we had the same kind of dogs--Airedales, never less than three at a time, so that for breeding purposes we were useful to each other. We often, too, went up to Town by the same train. His occupation was one which gave him opportunity of prominence in public life, but until the war he took little advantage of this, sunk in a kind of bluff indifferentism which was almost cynical. I used to look on him as a typically good-natured blunt Englishman, rather enjoying his cynicism, and appreciating his open-air tendencies--for he was a devotee of golf, and fond of shooting when he had the chance; a good companion, too, with an open hand to people in distress. He was unmarried, and dwelled in a bungalow-like house not far from mine, and next door to a German family called Holsteig, who had lived in England nearly twenty years. I knew them pretty well also--a very united trio, father, mother, and one son. The father, who came from Hanover, was something in the City, the mother was Scotch, and the son--the one I knew best and liked most--had just left his public school. This youth had a frank, open, blue-eyed face, and thick light hair brushed back without a parting--a very attractive, slightly Norwegian-looking type. His mother was devoted to him; she was a real West Highlander, slight, with dark hair going grey, high cheekbones, a sweet but rather ironical smile, and those grey eyes which have second sight in them. I several times met Harburn at their house, for he would go in to play billiards with Holsteig in the evenings, and the whole family were on very friendly terms with him. The third morning after we had declared war on Germany Harburn, Holsteig, and I went up to Town in the same carriage. Harburn and I talked freely. But Holsteig, a fair, well-set-up man of about fifty, with a pointed beard and blue eyes like his son, sat immersed in his paper till Harburn said suddenly: "I say, Holsteig, is it true that your boy was going off to join the German army?" Holsteig looked up. "Yes," he said. "He was born in Germany; he's liable to military service. But thank heaven, it isn't possible for him to go." "But his mother?" said Harburn. "She surely wouldn't have let him?" "She was very miserable, of course, but she thought duty came first." "Duty! Good God!--my dear man! Half British, and living in this country all his life! I never heard of such a thing!" Holsteig shrugged his shoulders. "In a crisis like this, what can you do except follow the law strictly? He is of military age and a German subject. We were thinking of his honour; but of course we're most thankful he can't get over to Germany." "Well, I'm damned!" said Harburn. "You Germans are too bally conscientious altogether." Holsteig did not answer.