omme Valley, with results now set down in the pages of history.

Having weathered this conversational opening, the stranger from
Britain finds himself, as the days of his sojourn increase in number,
swept gently but irresistibly into an ocean of talk--an ocean
complicated by eddies, cross-currents, and sudden shoals--upon the
subject of Anglo-American relations over the War. Here is the
substance of some of the questions which confront the perplexed
wayfarer:--

1. "Do your people at home appreciate the fact that we are
thoroughly pro-Ally over here?"

2. "How about that Blockade? What are you opening our mails
for--eh?"

3. "Would you welcome American intervention?"

4. "What do you propose to do about the submarine menace?"

5. "You don't _really_ think we are too proud to fight, do
you?"

6. "Are you in favour of National Training for Americans?"

7. "Do you expect to win outright, or are both sides going to
fight themselves to a standstill?"

_And_

8. "Why can't you Britishers be a bit kinder in your attitude
to us?"

CHAPTER TWO

Let us take this welter of interrogation categorically, and endeavour
to frame such answers as would occur to the average Briton to-day.

But first of all, let it be remembered that the average Briton of
to-day is not the average Briton of yesterday. Three years ago he was
a prosperous, comfortable, thoroughly insular Philistine. He took a
proprietary interest in the British Empire, and paid a munificent
salary to the Army and Navy for looking after it. There his Imperial
responsibilities ceased. As for other nations, he recognized their
existence; but that was all. In their daily life, or national ideals,
or habit of mind, he took not the slightest interest, and said so,
especially to foreigners.

"I'm English," he would explain, with a certain proud humility.
"That's good enough for yours truly!"

This sort of thing rather perplexed the American people, who take a
keen and intelligent interest in the affairs of other nations.

But to-day the average Briton would not speak like that. He will never
speak like that again. He has been outside his own island: he has made
a number of new acquaintances. He has been fighting alongside of the
French, and has made the discovery that they do not subsist entirely
upon frogs. He has encountered real Germans, at sufficiently close
quarters to realize that the "German Menace" at wh