ruined the world. While Europe agonized in torments unthinkable,
immeasurable, and yet mysteriously endurable only because there
was no escape visible, the Jake Nuddles, illiterate and literate,
croaked their batrachian protest against capital, bewailed the lot
of imaginary working-men, and belied the life of real working-men.

Staring at the Capitol, which means so much nobility to him who has
the nobility to understand the dream that raised it, he burlesqued its
ideals. Cruel, corrupt, lazy, and sloven of soul, he found there what
he knew best because it was his own. Aping a sympathy he could not
feel, he grew maudlin:

"So they drag our poor boys from their homes in droves and send 'em
off to the slaughter-house in France--all for money! Anything to grind
down the honest workman into the dust, no matter how many mothers'
hearts they break!"

Jake was one of those who never express sympathy for anybody except in
the course of a tirade against somebody else. He had small use for
wives, mothers, or children except as clubs to pound rich men with.
His wife, who knew him all too well, was not impressed by his
eloquence. Her typical answer to his typical tirade was, "I wonder how
on earth we're goin' to find Mamise."

Jake groaned at the anticlimax to his lofty flight, but he realized
that the main business before the house was what his wife propounded.

He remembered seeing an Information Bureau sign in the station. He had
learned from the newspaper in which he had seen Mamise's picture that
she was visiting Major Widdicombe. He had written the name down on the
tablets of his memory, and his first plan was to find Major
Widdicombe. Jake had a sort of wolfish cunning in tracing people he
wanted to meet. He could always find anybody who might lend him money.
He had mysterious difficulties in tracing some one who could give him
work.

He left his wife to simmer in the station while he set forth on a
scouting expedition. After much travel he found at last the office of
the Ordnance Department, in which Major Widdicombe toiled, and he
appeared at length at Major Widdicombe's desk.

Jake was cautious. He would not state his purpose. He hardly dared to
claim relationship with Miss Webling until he was positive that she
was his sister-in-law. Noting Jake's evasiveness, the Major discreetly
evaded the request for his guest's address. He would say no more
than:

"Miss Webling is coming down to lunch with me at the--that