cht, and we beat doon that barrier of various
languages, sae that it had nae existence.

And it's not only foreign peoples that speak a different tongue at
times. Whiles you'll find folk of the same family, the same race, the
same country, who gie the same words different meanings, and grow
confused and angry for that reason. There's a way they can overcome
that, and reach an understanding. It's by getting together and talking
oot all that confuses and angers them. Speech is a great solvent if a
man's disposed any way at all to be reasonable, and I've found, as
I've gone about the world, that most men want to be reasonable.

They'll call me an optimist, maybe. I'll no be ashamed of that title.
There was a saying I've heard in America that taught me a lot. They've
a wee cake there they call a doughnut--awfu' gude eating, though no
quite sae gude as Mrs. Lauder's scones. There's round hole in the
middle of a doughnut, always. And the Americans have a way of saying:
"The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist sees the hole." It's a
wise crack, you, and it tells you a good deal, if you'll apply it.

There's another way we maun be thinking. We've spent a deal of blood
and siller in these last years. We maun e'en have something to show
for all we've spent. For a muckle o' the siller we've spent we've just
borrowed and left for our bairns and their bairns to pay when the time
comes. And we maun leave the world better for those that are coming,
or they'll be saying it's but a puir bargain we've made for them, and
what we bought wasna worth the price.

CHAPTER XX

There's no sadder sicht my een have ever seen than that of the maimed
and wounded laddies that ha' come hame frae this war that is just
over. I ken that there's been a deal of talk aboot what we maun do for
them that ha' done sae much for us. But I'm thinking we can never
think too often of those laddies, nor mak' too many plans to mak' life
easier for them. They didna think before they went and suffered. They
couldna calculate. Jock could not stand, before the zero hour came in
the trenches, and talk' wi' his mate.

He'd not be saying: "Sandy, man, we're going to attack in twa-three
meenits. Maybe I'll lose a hand, Sandy, or a leg. Maybe it'll be
you'll be hit. What'll we be doing then? Let's mak' our plans the noo.
How'll we be getting on without our legs or our arms or if we should
be blind?"

No, it was not in such fashion that the laddies who did