As we all know now the enemy went too far, and had not the men to man his greatly extended lines or the labour to reorganise the new rear. He had spent his energy too lavishly, and Foch had all that was necessary, the one extra punch which sent the German reeling even in the moment which should have held his greatest pride. The fourth round was won by Foch and the Americans. The fifth by the British when they rolled the foe back from Amiens. After that Fritz was a lost man and floundered backward homeward, playing only for time, and only on his defensive, with all the triumph gone, hope gone, faith gone, and only punishment and humiliation ahead of him. In but a short while after the most terrible defeats it could be said that the Allies had won the war. The land o'er which the great advance was made is quiet enough now. To the towns and cities of the back areas the circus is coming for the first time since the war. After the leaping from trapeze to trapeze in mid-air, after the walking the tight rope, and the facing wild beasts in their cages, and other feats of daring, the clowns come tumbling into the arena. So it is also in life. There is one all in Turkey-red riding backward on an ass, telling all and sundry how much more clever he is than the genuine heroes they have been clapping. He gains in the long run more applause than the tight-rope dancer. Then two funny Columbines with air-blown bladders pretend to fight and whack at one another with resounding boshes, clumps and raps, laying one another out, panting for breath, exhausting themselves, almost expiring, and yet weakly hitting out with their quaint weapons. And the populace forgets the thrill of the spectacle of the man in the lions' cage making wild beasts jump through hoops of fire. The clowns are to its taste. The scene-shifters are quietly preparing the arena for the next heroic item--"A Roman spectacle when the gladiators meet"--and the clowns divert public attention from the carpentering of such a show until all is ready for the heroes to come out. A fourth clown all the while strikes heroic attitudes and mimics the after-the-war celebrities with apt buffoonery--now he is Wilson with the fourteen points, now he is D'Annunzio in mock heroic pose saying "J'y suis, j'y reste," now Lloyd George making the Germans pay by letting the Germans off paying. The malice of the buffoons provokes great mirth and takes the attention of the crowd so well that the heroes are almost forgotten, Tom Wildwest glowering from one of the exits and handling his rope and running noose as if he'd like to lasso the whole bunch of clowns and pull them out of the arena and the public gaze.