The members of the War Board went home much perturbed after this long harangue, for they were considerably muddled in their minds. Was their sudden interest and sympathy ridiculous? Dick was much interested to find how the thoughtful ones figured it out. Of course Captain Billy didn't need to figure it out. Captain Billy instinctively and promptly took his position on any question which arrested his attention. He never had to think--he knew. To him all this "back history" had nothing to do with the case. Germany and Austria were the enemy. Serbia was on the side of the Allies. That was all that was necessary for him to know. Neither the War Board nor the town was so sure. In many a quarter of the town Dick ran on efforts to understand what Europe herself has so long and so fatally failed to understand. The boys in his club began to ask for books on the Balkans. It was no uncommon thing to find the butcher or the grocer catechizing Czech or Serb or Greek, getting their point of view. And the stories they heard were repeated. Nikola Petrovitch became one of the most popular men in town. The radical Rev. Mr. Pepper gave a series of Sunday night talks on the submerged Balkan States, boldly declaring for a United States of Europe, which, if not a new idea to statesmen and journalists, certainly was new, and not very intelligible to his congregation, most of whom thought he was going rather far afield for something to talk about. And yet they listened, tried to understand, and many of them discussed the idea--studied their maps--looked up forgotten histories. It was leaven--working leaven; and slowly there rose out of it the conviction in Sabinsport that something was very wrong indeed in Southwestern Europe, and that the powerful states of those parts, instead of trying to right the wrongs by just agreements, faithfully observed, were, and long had been, intent on keeping the hot-headed little states in turmoil and in suspicion, watching their chance for a plausible excuse to pounce on them one by one and absorb them. Certainly this was as near the truth as you could get in regard to Serbia and Austria; and it ought to be stopped. There were few, if any, in Sabinsport yet, however, that felt that our responsibility reached that part of the world. To rescue France and avenge Belgium might come to be our business--_was_ our business, certain ones felt more and more strongly. But the Balkans? No, that was not for us. CHAPTER VI