of the hospital
had irked his soul. Here the air was full of the pneumatic riveter.
They called it the gun that would win the war. The shipyard atmosphere
was shattered all day long as if with machine-gun fire and the
riveters were indeed firing at Germany. Every red-hot rivet was a
bullet's worth.

The cry grew louder for ships. The submarine was cutting down the
world's whole fleet by a third. In February the Germans sank the
_Tuscania_, loaded with American soldiers, and 159 of them were lost.
Uncle Sam tightened his lips and added the _Tuscania's_ dead soldiers
to the _Lusitania's_ men and women and children on the invoice against
Germany. He tightened his belt, too, and cut down his food for
Europe's sake. He loosened his purse-strings and poured out gold and
bonds and war-savings stamps, borrowing, lending, and spending with
the desperation of a gambler determined to break the bank.

While Davidge was still in the hospital the German offensive broke. It
succeeded beyond the scope of the blackest prophecy. It threw the fear
of hell into the stoutest hearts. All over the country people were
putting pins in maps, always putting them farther back. Everybody
talked strategy, and geography became the most dreadful of topics.

On March 29th Pershing threw what American troops were abroad into the
general stock, gave them to Haig and Foch to use as they would.

On the same day the mysterious giant cannon of the Germans sent a
shell into Paris, striking a church and killing seventy-five
worshipers. And it was on a Good Friday that the men of _Gott_ sent
this harbinger of good-will.

The Germans began to talk of the end of Great Britain, the erasure of
France, and the reduction of America to her proper place.

Spring came to the dismal world again with a sardonic smile. In
Washington the flower-duel was renewed between the Embassy terrace and
the Louise Home. The irises made a drive and the forsythia sent up its
barrage. The wistaria and the magnolia counterattacked. The Senator
took off his wig again to give official sanction to summer and to rub
his bewildered head the better.

The roving breezes fluttered tragic newspapers everywhere--in the
parks, on the streets, on the scaffolds of the buildings, along the
tented lanes, and in the barrack-rooms.

This wind was a love-zephyr as of old. But the world was frosted with
a tremendous fear. What if old England fell? Empires did fall.
Nineveh, Babylon, and before th