e whole war so far."

"By keeping the German fleet bottled up you mean?" asked Jacques.

"That's it," said Earl decidedly. "Take the English fleet away and let
the German warships come out of their hole and see what would happen to
the Allies!"

"What would happen?" inquired Dubois.

"Well first of all they'd stop the shipment of all supplies for us from
America. Think what that would mean. Then again they'd soon starve
out England and she wouldn't be able to send any more soldiers over
here to France."

"They haven't sent so many anyway," muttered Dubois.

"Yes," agreed Earl, "but they're sending them now all right. England
only had a small army at the beginning of the war and it takes time to
make a good soldier just as it takes time to make a good anything else.
They'll send plenty of men, don't you worry, and I feel sure there are
a good many more here right now than you have any idea of."

"Probably," agreed Dubois. "At any rate they helped us a lot at the
beginning of the war when the Boches were driving us on the run back
towards Paris."

"Then you think it's all right for the United States to sell supplies
to the Allies and not to Germany?" asked Jacques. "I must say that I
am glad that is what they are doing anyway."

"Certainly it is all right," exclaimed Earl. "It is permitted by
international law and every nation in the world has done the same thing
at some time or another. Just because this happens to be the biggest
war in the history of the world and because as a result the United
States is selling more supplies, doesn't change the facts, does it? As
I said, we'd sell to Germany just as quickly as to the Allies. Because
they can't get the stuff isn't our fault."

"Yea, Earl, you're quite a speechmaker," cried his brother gleefully.

"Isn't what I said true?" demanded Earl.

"Of course it is. Why if we refused to sell to the Allies now that
would mean that we were actively on the side of Germany and nothing we
could do would be of greater help to her just now."

The order was passed along the trench that the regiment was to retire
and their places were to be taken by fresh troops. The prospect of
reaching a place where the enemy's shells would not be roaring around
their ears was a pleasant one to many of the men; the strain of the
first line trenches is a heavy one for any man. Others however were
displeased, for they had no wish to be absent during any possible
fighting.

"T