one could hardly expect
subtlety--"

Merle was again almost annoyed.

"Subtle be jiggered! Do you think you people are subtle? About as subtle
as a ton of bricks. All your talk in that magazine about this being a
land of the dollar, no ideals, no spirituality, a land of
money-grubbers--all that other stuff! Say, I want to tell you this is
the least money-grubbing land there is! You people would know that if
you had any subtlety. Maybe you did know it. We went into that scrap for
an ideal, and we're the only country that did. France might have gone
for an ideal, but France had to fight, anyway.

"England? Do you think England went in only to save poor little
Belgium? She herself was the next dish on the bill of fare. But we went
in out of general damfoolishness--for an ideal--this country you said
didn't have any. We don't care about money--less than any of those
people. Watch a Frenchman count his coppers, or an Englishman that
carries his in a change purse and talks about pounds but really thinks
in shillings. We carry our money loose and throw it away.

"If this country had been what your sniveling little magazine called it
we'd never have gone into that fight. You're not even subtle enough to
know that much. We knew it would cost like hell, but we knew it was a
great thing to do. Not another nation on earth would have gone in for
that reason. That's the trouble with you poor little shut-ins; you
decide the country hasn't any ideals because someone runs a stockyard
out in Chicago or a foundry in Pittsburgh. God help you people if you'd
had your way about the war! The Germans would be taking that nonsense
out of you by this time. And to think you had me kind of ashamed when I
went over! I thought you knew something then." He concluded on a note
almost plaintive.

Merle had grown visibly impatient.

"My dear fellow, really! Your point of view is interesting enough, even
if all too common. You are true to type, but so crude a type--so crude!"

"Sure, I'm crude! The country itself is crude, I guess. But it takes a
crude country to have ideals--ideals with guts. Your type isn't crude, I
suppose, but it hasn't any ideals, either."

"No ideals! No ideals! Ah, but that's the best thing you've said!"

He laughed masterfully, waving aside the monstrous accusation.

"Well, maybe it is the best thing I've said. You haven't any ideals that
would get any action out of you. You might tear down a house, but you'd
never bu