William Hollis, having defeated the boy, turned his back to the sun and was assured by the Blackhampton _Star_ that he was living in a great moment of the world's history. Germany had, it seemed, until twelve o'clock that evening to decide whether she would take on England. She had taken on France, Russia and Belgium already; a few hours hence, if she wasn't careful, she would have to fight the British Empire. Even to Bill Hollis, dizzied by the sheer magnitude of the headlines of his favorite journal which actually surpassed those of the Crippen trial, the sinking of the _Titanic_ and the late King Edward's visit to Blackhampton, that phrase "the British Empire" was full of magic. Lurking somewhere in a compound of half-baked inefficiencies was the vision of a poet, and at this moment it was queerly responsive to this symbol. "It's all up with 'em if they take on Us." In strict order of priority that was the first message to flash through the sentient being of Mr. William Hollis to be duly recorded by the central office. Hard upon it came a second message. "They've got a Nerve--them Germans." In the column for late news were blurred fragments of the speech of the Foreign Minister in the House of Commons. Intellectually William Hollis was not conspicuously bright, but, as he read the simple words, the nature of the terrible misprision against the human race came home to him and he could only gasp. He got up presently and moved away from the band. As always the band was very nice, but for some reason or other he didn't want to hear it just now. For a short time he walked about on the brown grass, the President's cup under his arm, wrapped in the _Evening Star_. But he wasn't thinking now of the President, of the cup, of Melia, of the injustice of Fate to a private citizen. His thoughts were centered on a Thing that made all these other things, painfully intimate as they were, of no moment at all. These were but trivial matters, and he was now in the presence of the inconceivable, the stupendous. Coming back to the throng, perhaps for the latent solace these clusters of fellow beings afforded him, he saw from their blank eyes, their set faces, that his own terrible thoughts were shared more or less by them all. The boy had sold his papers already. Other boys had sold theirs. The whole place was alive with fluttering news sheets, gleaming white and spectral in the sun. Already these people, these stout females in farcical clothes, for the most part trundling queer abortions on the end of a string, and these hard-faced, grasping men who were always overreaching one in trade, were living in a different world. They were not thinking now of flowers and vegetables, of bands or dancing, although the first couples of juniors had just begun to sway rhythmically to the strains of "Hitchy Koo." Something else had come into their lives.