"Another thing. As the Germans are brutal among themselves, I predict that, stirred up as they are, they will be brutal like Huns in this war. You see how they deal with their own women. Imagine what they will do to foreign women. How do you yourself think your young military Bucher would act toward Americans if he landed on our coast with a gun? The German will be like a Hun just as he was in the treacherous days of Ariovistus and Arminius--the Teutoberger forest and all that over again. He will red-handedly rebuff civilizing influences just as he did in those days." "How do you define Hun?" asked Gard. "The Germans are not Huns by race." "No. I said _like_ Huns. I mean by Huns a people who insist on their tribal sovereign right of conquest by means of ruthless murder and senseless destruction--wiping out foreign races and property." One evening the conversation drifted to this theme: "Is Luther--Protestantism--one of the reasons why Protestant America is so favorably inclined to Germany?" suggested Kirtley. "Americans would be surprised to find there is no such thing as Lutheranism here. A bumptious military cult has usurped its place. There are no Lutherans in Deutschland--only Evangelicals and Dissidents. And of course Catholics. If you ask an ordinary Teuton what Protestantism is, he will scarcely know what you mean precisely. American Protestantism and German Protestantism are radically unlike. The one is peaceful and trustful, the other is warlike and knavish. "And it seems to me so plain that, besides our religionists, our American education is playing in with the Kaiser's plans. It tends to weaken faith in our government. It makes unpatriotic citizens. Our colleges turn out young men who feel no political duties. We teach them to look for benefits without responsibilities. How different with the German universities! Our school histories, too, nurse active hatred of England, and everywhere with us the main opinion about the French is fostered that they are immoral and therefore to be despised. All this works in with the advancement of German popularity and interests, while at the same time our young men, like you, are sent here to study. Only the best in Germany is diligently kept before our people. The worst is never known as you and I are learning to know it over here." "So you think," said Gard companionably, "that the Kaiser will set his fiery ball rolling this spring." "I put the date at March first." The old man's hands trembled as he relighted his cigar stub. His voice almost broke.