world. Old age was touched with the divine elixir. In that crowd there is the springtime of life, when Pan played on his pipes through pagan woods. I wouldn't have missed it for a million dollars!"
That night Brand and I and some others (Charles Fortune among them) were billeted in a small hotel which had been a German headquarters a few days before. There was a piano in the billiard room, and Fortune touched its keys. Several notes were broken, but he skipped them deftly and improvised a musical caricature of "Daddy" Small dancing in the Carnival. He too had seen that astonishing vision, and it inspired him to grotesque fantasies. In his imagination he brought a great general to Verviers—"Blear-eyed Bill, the Butcher of the Boche"—and gave him a pas seul in the Grande Place, like an elephant gambolling in green fields, and trumpeting his joy.
Young Harding was moody, and confided to me that he did not like the idea of crossing the German frontier and going to Cologne.
"There will be dirty work," he said, "as sure as fate. The Huns will begin sniping, and then we shall have to start reprisals. Well, if they ask for it I hope we shall give it to them. Without mercy, after all they have done. At the first sign of treachery I hope the machine-guns will begin to play. Every time I see a Hun I shall feel like slitting his throat."
"Well, you'll get into a murderous state of mind," I answered him. "We shall see plenty, and live among them. I expect they will be tame enough."
"Some poor devils of ours will be murdered in their beds," said Harding. "It makes my blood boil to think of it. I only hope we shan't stand any nonsense. I'd like to see Cologne Cathedral go up in flames. That would be a consolation."
