and unsuccessfully ransacked the music she put at my disposal to find a copy of the Hymn of Hate. A pleasant Fräulein comes to talk German with me daily, and from her, directly and indirectly, I have learnt much which interests me about the German attitude. I was fortunate in the chance which threw us together, for she is an attractive, broad-minded girl, singularly free from prejudice and bitterness. During an acquaintance extending over many months we have learnt to know and like each other, and have long since forgotten we are technically enemies. My Fräulein has lived both in England and France and has friends in both countries. Her lover and her brother were killed in the war. Another brother survives, more dead than alive. The hunger pinch was severe in the Rhineland, which was always better off than other parts of Germany. Of air raids she spoke with unmistakable horror. Bombs had fallen in her near neighbourhood on one occasion, so she told me; it was a case of spending every night in the cellar. All this came as a surprise to me, because not a brick seems out of place in Cologne. Still more was I interested by her denunciations of evils which sounded strangely familiar. Profiteering, it was scandalous what had gone on! All the horrible people who had made money out of the war and the sufferings of the nation. The new rich were a disgrace. The Government had been very slack in dealing with them. And then the skulkers, the shameful young men who went to earth in reserved occupations and offices and did not go to fight. Food? They had starved in the towns, so ineffective was the system of distribution. The country people who grew the food took care not to part with it. The new Government? She shrugged her shoulders in despair. Since the Revolution things had gone from bad to worse. Every one was discontented, especially all the work-people, who spend their time demanding higher wages and shorter hours. And servants, there were none left. No girls would go out to work; they had all been spoilt by high wages in munition works. As I listened I rubbed my eyes, and wondered if I were sitting in London or Cologne. How often at home had one listened to complaints of this very type about the shortcomings of the working-classes, always pointed by the remark that, however wicked, the efficient Hun Government managed these things much better in Germany. And yet apparently every complaint with which we were familiar in England was also in full blast here. Always with one great difference, to which I must refer again in another chapter: the Germans for years were hungry, and they fought the war with starvation slowly eating out their hearts.