o revised some ancient opinions of their
Allies.

"Cold!" he said scornfully; "never again tell me these English are
cold. Children--perhaps. Foolish--but yes, a little. They try to kill a
man between jests; they laugh if a bullet wounds a comrade so that he
grimaces with pain--it is true; I saw it." It _was_ true, and had
reference to a sight scrape of a bullet across the tip of the nose of a
Towers private, and the ribald jests and laughter thereat. "They make
jokes, and say a man 'stopped one,' meaning a shell had been stopped in
its flight by exploding on him--this the interpreter has explained to
me. But cold--no, no, no! If you had seen this man--ah, sublime,
magnificent! With the whistling balls all round him he stands, so
brave, so noble, so fine, stands--so! '_Vive la France_!' he cried
aloud, with a tongue of trumpets; '_Vive la France! A bas les
Boches_!'"

The captain, as he declaimed "with a tongue of trumpets," leaped to his
feet and struck an attitude that was really quite a good imitation of
'Enery's own mock-tragedian one. But the officers listening breathed
awe and admiration; they did not, as the Towers did, laugh, because
here, unlike the Towers, they saw nothing to laugh at.

The captain dropped to his chair amid a murmur of applause. "Sublime!"
he said. "That posture, that cry! Indeed, it was worthy of a Frenchman.
But certainly we must recommend him for a Cross of France, eh, my
major?"

'Enery Irving got the Cross of the Legion of Honor. But I doubt if it
ever gave him such pure and legitimate joy as did a notice stuck up in
the German trench next day. Certainly it insulted the English by
stating that their workers stayed at home and went on strike while
Frenchmen fought and died. _But_ it was headed "Frenchman!" _and it was
written in French._

THE FEAR OF FEAR

_"At ---- we recaptured the portion of front line trench lost by us
some days ago."_--EXTRACT FROM DISPATCH.

"In a charge," said the Sergeant, "the 'Hotwater Guards' don't think
about going back till there's none of them left to go back; and you can
always remember this: if you go forward you _may_ die, if you go back
you _will_ die."

The memory of that phrase came back to Private Everton, tramping down
the dark road to the firing-line. Just because he had no knowledge of
how he himself would behave in this his baptism of fire, just because
he was in deadly fear that he would feel fear, or, still worse, show
it, he st