f physically fit men
walking about in civilian clothes. Nobody seemed particularly
disturbed about the war. Kitchener was raising his army, and "the
Navy, thank God! was in excellent shape. Just wait till the Spring,
and Emperor Bill would get his bumps. We are willing to go if they
need us but not till they do. Why worry?"

In Clubland the difference was very marked--it had been deserted by
the younger men, and the clubs sheltered only a few of the older men
who had nowhere else to go. For, be it said to the eternal glory of
the man-about-town,--the wealthy knut who knew little more perhaps
than to run an expensive car, give expensive dinners and get into
trouble--the upper class drone--that he was among the first to
volunteer and get into active service. Perhaps all he could do was
drive a car; if so he did it--drove a London bus out at the front, or
a wagon; or did anything else at which he would be useful. Many of the
idle rich young men, and the majority of the young titled men of
England, rose to the occasion and went out and fought and died, and
many now lie buried in Flanders for the sake of Old England--for the
freedom of the world.

These posters shouting for recruits somehow did not look like England;
they were too hysterical; they were not effective: London, with more
posters per head of population than any other city in the Empire,
recruited men less swiftly than any other place.

Thousands of sight-seers crowded to the football matches while the
newspapers vainly lashed themselves into fury. It was only when Lloyd
George asked for more men, and gave convincing reasons that they were
needed, that the country responded. Day by day the newspapers made the
best of bad news from the front, and day by day did the readers
thereof conclude that England was doing well, and they "supposed that
she would bungle through." No man of prophetic foresight had yet
risen to say "This is a life and death struggle for us; we need every
man in the country, and every shilling to win the war." The common
talk was that we had stepped in to keep our treaty with France and to
assist poor Belgium, whose neutrality had been violated. Englishmen
did not feel that England's fall was first and last the object of
Germany's ambition. They did not realize that Germany saw in England
the nation which was always thwarting her and frustrating her desire
for "a place in the sun."

Should the theatres be kept open? should German waiters be