gs."

There was a sound of approval in the room, and they all nodded their
heads.

He looked at me, and as I supposed he might be expecting an answer I
thought I had better say _ja_ again, so I did.

"England," he then continued, "is our cousin, our blood-relation.
Therefore is it that we can and must tell her the truth, even if it is
unpalatable."

"_Ja_," I said, as he paused again; only there were several little
things I would have liked to have said about that, if I had been able
to talk German properly. But I had nothing but my list of exclamations
and the psalms I had learnt ready. So I said _Ja_, and tried to look
modest and intelligent.

"Her love of money, her materialism--these are her great dangers," he
said. "I do not like to contemplate, and I ask my friends here--" he
turned slowly round on his heels and back again--"whether they would
like to contemplate a day when the sun of the British Empire, that
Empire which, after all, has upheld the cause of religion with
faithfulness and persistence for so long, shall be seen at last
descending, to rise no more, in an engulfing ocean of over-indulged
appetites."

"_Ja_," I said; and then perceiving it was the wrong word, hastily
amended in English, "I mean _nein_."

He looked at me for a moment more carefully. Then deciding that all
was well he went on.

"England," he said, "is our natural ally. She is of the same blood,
the same faith, and the same colour. Behold the other races of the
world, and they are either partly, chiefly, or altogether black. The
blonde races are, like the dawn, destined to drive away the darkness.
They must stand together shoulder to shoulder in any discord that may,
in the future, gash the harmony of the world."

"_Ja_," I said, as one who should, at the conclusion of a Psalm, be
saying Selah.

"We live in serious times," he said. "They may easily become more
serious. Round us stand the Latins and the Slavs, armed to the teeth,
bursting with envy of our goods, of our proud calm, and watching for
the moment when they can fall upon us with criminal and murderous
intent. Is it not so, my Fraulein?"

"_Ja_" said I, forced to agree because of my unfortunate emptiness of
German.

The only thing I could have reeled off at him was the Psalm I had
learnt, and I did long to, because it was the one asking why the
heathen so furiously rage together; but you see, little mother, though
I longed to I couldn't have followed i