The sergeant-major gave a snort of laughter. “The Russians?... They soon tired of it, anyhow. Let us all down, eh?” “What about atrocities?” said the corporal, who was a Cockney. “Atrocities?” said the English-speaking girl. “Oh, yes, there were many. The Russians were very cruel.” “Come off it!” said the corporal. “I mean German atrocities.” “German?” said the girl. “No, our soldiers were well-behaved--always! There were many lies told in the English papers.” “That’s true enough,” said the sergeant-major. “Lies? Why, they fed us up with lies. ‘The Germans are starving. The Germans are on their last legs.’ ‘The great victory at Neuve Chapelle!’ God! I was in that great victory. The whole battalion cut to pieces, and not an officer left. A bloody shambles--and no sense in it.... Another drop of wine, my dear?” “Seems to me,” said the cockney corporal, “that there was a deal of dirty work on both sides. I’m not going to say there wasn’t no German atrocities--lies or no lies--becos’ I saw a few of ’em myself, an’ no mistake. But what I says now is what I says when I lay in the lousy trenches with five-point-nines busting down the parapets. ‘The old devil ’as got us all by the legs!’ I said, and ’ad a fellow-feelin’ for the poor blighters on the other side of the barbed wire lying in the same old mud. Now I’m beginning to think the Germans are the same as us, no better, nor no worse, I reckon. Any’ow, you can tell your sister, miss, that I like the way she does ’er ’air. It reminds me of my Liz.” The English-speaking German girl did not understand this speech. She appealed to the sergeant-major. “What does your friend say?” The sergeant-major roared with laughter. “My chum says that a pretty face cures a lot of ill-feeling. Your sister is a sweet little thing, he says. _Comprenney?_ Perhaps you had better not translate that part to your Ma.... Have another drop of wine, my dear.” Presently the party rose from the table and went out, the sergeant-major paying for the drinks in a lordly way, and saying, “After you, ma’am,” to the mother of the two girls. “All this,” said Brand when they had gone, “is very instructive.... And I’ve been making discoveries.” “What kind?” Brand looked away into the vista of the room, and his eyes roved about the tables where other soldiers of ours sat with other Germans. “I’ve found out,” he said, “that the British hatred of a nation breaks down in the presence of its individuals. I’ve discovered that it is not in the character of English fighting-men--Canadian, too, by the look of it--to demand vengeance from the innocent for the sins of the guilty. I’m seeing that human nature, ours anyhow, swings back to the normal, as soon as an abnormal strain is released. It is normal in human nature to be friendly towards its kind, in spite of five years’ education in savagery.”