wo successive mornings I sat with him for a long hour in
the shade of the terraces which overlook the Pyramids discussing the
"German danger." After the great soldier had left for Cairo he wrote
asking me to regard our conversations as confidential; and down to this
moment I have always done so, but I see no harm now (quite the reverse
of harm) in repeating the substance of what he said so many years ago on
a matter of such infinite momentousness.

"Do you really attach importance to this scare of a German invasion?" I
asked.

"I'm afraid I do," said Lord Roberts.

"You think an enemy army could be landed on our shores?"

"As things are now, yes, I think it could."

"Do you think you could land an army on the East Coast of England and
march on to London?"

"Yes, I do."

"In a thick fog, of course?" "Without a fog," said Lord Roberts. After
that he described in detail the measures we ought to take to make such
an attack impossible and I hasten to add that, so far as I can see and
know, the precautionary measures he recommended have all been taken
since the outbreak of the war.

"WE'LL FIGHT AND FIGHT SOON"

By that time I had, in common with the majority of my countrymen who
travelled much abroad, been compelled to recognize the ever-increasing
hostility of the German and British peoples whenever they encountered
each other on the highways of the world--their constant cross-purposes
on steamships, in railway trains, hotels, casinos, post and telegraph
offices--making social intercourse difficult and friendship impossible.
The overbearing manners of many German travellers, their aggressive and
domineering selfishness, which always demanded the best seats, the best
rooms, and the first attention, was year by year becoming more and more
intolerable to the British spirit. It cannot be said that we acquiesced.
Indeed, it must be admitted that our country-people usually met the
German claims to be the supermen of Europe with rather unnecessary
self-assertion. If an unmannerly German pushed before us at the counter
of a booking-office we pushed him back; if he shouted over our shoulders
at a telegraph office we told him to hold his tongue; and if, in
stiflingly hot weather, he insisted (as he often did) on shutting up
again and again the window of a railway carriage after we had opened it
for a breath of air, we sometimes drove our elbow through the glass for
final answer--as I saw an English barrister do one c