'It's a story of how one Englishman took thirty Germans prisoners,' I said with a laugh. 'One Englishman took thirty German prisoners!' cried the squire. 'Good old English bull-dog! But how did he do it? Man, it's impossible!' 'Nothing is impossible to a man who keeps his head cool, and has a ready wit,' was my answer. I thereupon, without mentioning Edgecumbe's name, described how I had been taken prisoner, and how I found myself in the German trenches. 'But how did you get out of such a hole as that?' cried the squire. 'As I told you,' I said, 'I found myself with my sergeant in a huge dug-out with thirty Germans. Of course our position was apparently hopeless. They had got us, and meant to keep us. I had been unconscious for a long time owing to a nasty knock I had got, and therefore I was tremendously surprised when I presently heard an English voice talking to the Germans. Evidently another English prisoner had been brought in.' 'Then you were three against thirty,' laughed the squire. 'Three against thirty if you will,' I replied, 'but only one in reality. I was no good, and my sergeant had no other hope than to be buried in a German prison. The new-comer, however, evidently meant business. All the time the English guns were booming, and our explosives were tearing the Boches' trenches to pieces. As it happened, we were too deep for them to reach us, although the danger was that we might be buried alive. That gave this chap, whose face I could not see, his chance, and he began to tell the Germans what idiots they were to stay there in imminent danger of death, when they could get to safety. He described the jolly times which German prisoners had in England, and of the absolute certainty of their being licked on the battle-field. Of course at first the Germans laughed at him, but he went on talking, and in a few minutes he had got every one of them to surrender.' 'But that's impossible!' cried the squire. 'It's a fact,' I said. 'Never in my life had I realized the effect which a cool, courageous man could have upon a crowd of men. Call it a miracle if you like,--indeed I always shall think of it as a miracle,--but without once losing his nerve, or once revealing the slightest lack of confidence, he worked upon the fears and hopes of those Boches in such a way that he persuaded them to follow him, and give themselves up in a body as prisoners. It was one of the most amusing things you ever saw in your life, to see this one man lead those thirty Boches, while they held up their hands and cried "Kamerad."' 'By George, sir!' said the squire, 'that's great, great, sir! No one but an Englishman could do a thing like that. Ah, the old country is the old country still! But who was he, an officer or a private?' 'A private,' I replied. 'And he rescued you, and took the whole thirty Huns as prisoners? By Jove, I should like to know that man! Is he alive now?' 'Very much alive,' I laughed. 'Where is he, then?'