well, it makes you ashamed o' bein' English
sometimes--it does straight: And the women are the worst. I said to my
wife only last night, I said: 'They call themselves Christians,' I said,
'but for all the charity that's in 'em they might as well be Huns.'
She couldn't see it-not she!' Well, why do they drop bombs?' she says.
'What!' I said, 'those English wives and bakers drop bombs? Don't be
silly,' I said. 'They're as innocent as we.' It's the innocent that
gets punished for the guilty. 'But they're all spies,' she says. 'Oh!' I
said, 'old lady! Now really! At your time of life!' But there it is; you
can't get a woman to see reason. It's readin' the papers. I often think
they must be written by women--beggin' your pardon, miss--but reely,
the 'ysterics and the 'atred--they're a fair knockout. D'you find much
hatred in your household, miss?"

Noel shook her head. "No; my father's a clergyman, you see."

"Ah!" said the policeman. And in the glance he bestowed on her could be
seen an added respect.

"Of course," he went on, "you're bound to have a sense of justice
against these Huns; some of their ways of goin' on have been above
the limit. But what I always think is--of course I don't say these
things--no use to make yourself unpopular--but to meself I often think:
Take 'em man for man, and you'd find 'em much the same as we are, I
daresay. It's the vicious way they're brought up, of actin' in the
mass, that's made 'em such a crool lot. I see a good bit of crowds in
my profession, and I've a very low opinion of them. Crowds are the most
blunderin' blighted things that ever was. They're like an angry woman
with a bandage over her eyes, an' you can't have anything more dangerous
than that. These Germans, it seems, are always in a crowd. They get a
state o' mind read out to them by Bill Kaser and all that bloody-minded
lot, an' they never stop to think for themselves."

"I suppose they'd be shot if they did," said Noel.

"Well, there is that," said the policeman reflectively. "They've brought
discipline to an 'igh pitch, no doubt. An' if you ask me,"--he lowered
his voice till it was almost lost in his chin-strap, "we'll be runnin'
'em a good second 'ere, before long. The things we 'ave to protect now
are gettin' beyond a joke. There's the City against lights, there's the
streets against darkness, there's the aliens, there's the aliens' shops,
there's the Belgians, there's the British wives, there's the soldiers
again