said, and 'ad a fellow-feelin' for the poor blighters on the other side of the barbed wire lying in the same old mud. Now I'm beginning to think the Germans are the same as us, no better, nor no worse, I reckon. Any'ow, you can tell your sister, miss, that I like the way she does 'er 'air. It reminds me of my Liz."
The English-speaking German girl did not understand this speech. She appealed to the sergeant-major.
"What does your friend say?"
The sergeant-major roared with laughter.
"My chum says that a pretty face cures a lot of ill-feeling. Your sister is a sweet little thing, he says. Comprenney? Perhaps you had better not translate that part to your Ma. . . . Have another drop of wine, my dear."
Presently the party rose from the table and went out, the sergeant-major paying for the drinks in a lordly way, and saying, "After you, ma'am," to the mother of the two girls.
"All this," said Brand when they had gone, "is very instructive. . . . And I've been making discoveries."
"What kind?"
Brand looked away into the vista of the room, and his eyes roved about the tables where other soldiers of ours sat with other Germans.
"I've found out," he said, "that the British hatred of a nation breaks down in the presence of its individuals. I've discovered that it is not in the character of English fighting-men—Canadian, too, by the look of it—to demand vengeance from the innocent for the sins of the guilty. I'm seeing that human nature, ours anyhow, swings back to the normal, as soon as an abnormal strain is released. It is normal in human nature to be friendly towards its kind, in spite of five years' education in savagery."
