armless old men of
seventy, or 326 able-bodied men of thirty-five, or 1,630 innocent little
children of seven. If that isn't atrocity, what is? I think Mr. Hoover
or Admiral Grayson, or somebody, ought to be prosecuted."

I was aghast at this awful result. Then an idea struck me, and I took
the pencil and began to figure on my own account.

"Look here, Titania," I said. "Not so fast. Moving the clock ahead
doesn't really bring those people any nearer their graves. What it does
do is bring the ratification of the Peace Treaty sooner, which is a fine
thing. By deleting a hundred million hours we shorten Senator Borah's
speeches against the League by 11,410 years. That's very encouraging."

"According to that way of reckoning," she said with sarcasm, "Mr.
Borah's term must have expired about 11,000 years ago."

"My dear Titania," I said, "the ways of the Government may seem
inscrutable, but we have got to follow them with faith. If Mr. Wilson
tells us to murder 163 fine old men in elastic-sided boots we must
simply do it, that's all. Peace is a dreadful thing. We have got to meet
the Germans on their own ground. They adopted this daylight-saving
measure years ago. They call it Sonnenuntergangverderbenpraxis, I
believe. After all, it is only a temporary measure, because in the fall,
when the daylight hours get shorter, we shall have to turn the clocks
back a couple of hours in order to compensate the gas and electric light
companies for all the money they will have lost. That will bring those
163 old gentlemen to life again and double their remaining term of years
to make up for their temporary effacement. They are patriotic hostages
to Time for the summer only. You must remember that time is only a
philosophical abstraction, with no real or tangible existence, and we
have a right to do whatever we want with it."

"I will remind you of that," she said, "at getting-up time on Sunday
morning. I still think that if we are going to monkey with the clocks at
all it would be better to turn them backward instead of forward.
Certainly that would bring you home from the club a little earlier."

"My dear," I said, "we are in the Government's hands. A little later we
may be put on time rations, just as we are on food rations. We may have
time cards to encourage thrift in saving time. Every time we save an
hour we will get a little stamp to show for it. When we fill out a whole
card we will be entitled to call ourselves a month yo