Americans -- England -- Fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- England -- Fiction
Watson rose to his feet, and crossing to the fireplace, flicked the ash
from his cigar, and leaned lazily against the stone shelf. 'You're a
member of the Royal Automobile Club, aren't you?' he drawled.
Selwyn nodded and resumed his nervous walk.
'Take my advice, Austin. Every time you feel that kind of dope
mounting to your head, trot across the road to the club and have a swim
in their tank. You'd be surprised how it would bring you down to
earth.'
'You talk like a child,' said Selwyn angrily.
'Well,' retorted the other, 'that's better than talking like an old
woman.'
With an impatient movement of his shoulders the younger man left the
fireplace, and walking over to the piano, picked up a Hawaiian ukulele
which had been left there by Mrs. Jarvis. Getting the pitch from the
piano, while Selwyn continued his restless march up and down the room,
he studiously occupied himself with tuning the instrument, then
strummed a few chords with his fingers.
'Sorry not to fit in with your peace-brother-peace stuff,' said Watson
amiably, strumming a recent rag-time melody with a certain amount of
dexterity, 'but I always played you for a real white man at college.'
'Doug,' said Selwyn, stopping his walk and sitting on the arm of a big
easy-chair, 'if there is a coward in this room, it's you.'
The haunting music of the ukulele was the only response.
'Here you are at Cambridge--an American,' went on Selwyn. 'Just
because the set you know enlists with an accompaniment of
tub-thumping'----
'That isn't the way the English do things,' said Watson without pausing
in his playing.
'My dear fellow,' said Selwyn, 'don't let the pose of modesty fool you
over here. They profess to hold up their hands in horror when we get
hold of megaphones and roar about "The Star-Spangled Banner," but what
of the phrases, "The Empire on which the sun never sets," "What we have
we'll hold," "Mistress of the Seas"? Is there so much difference
between the Kaiser's "_Ich und Gott_" and the Englishman's "God of our
far-flung battle-line"? Jingoism! We're amateurs in America compared
with the British--and you're caught by it all.'
'Nothing of the sort,' said Watson, putting down the ukulele. 'All I
know is that Germany runs amuck and gives a mighty good imitation of
hell let loose. I am not discounting the wonderful bravery of France
and Belgium, but you know that the hope of everything lies right in
this country here. Well, that's good enough for me. I'm a hundred per
cent. American, but right now I'm willing to throw over my citizenship
in the United States and join this Empire that's got the guts to go to
war.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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