least—­we are moving more and more towards the manly and unforgiving vigour of the tiger and the rat.  To be brutal!  This is the one lesson that the Germans can teach us, for we had almost forgotten the art.  What danger we were in!  Thank God, we have past masters again among us now!” A frown became fixed between his brows.  “Yes, indeed, past masters.  How I venerate those good journalists and all the great crowd of witnesses who have dominated the mortal weakness, pity.  ’The Hun must and shall be destroyed—­root and branch—­hip and thigh—­bag and baggage man, woman, and babe—­this is the sole duty of the great and humane British people.  Roll up, ladies and gentlemen, roll up!  Great thought—­great language!  And yet——­”

Here Mr. Lavender broke into a gentle sweat, while the Germans went on sifting gravel in front of him, and Blink continued to look up into his face with her fixed, lustrous eyes.  “What an awful thing,” he thought, “to be a man.  If only I were just a public man and could, as they do, leave out the human and individual side of everything, how simple it would be!  It is the being a man as well which is so troublesome.  A man has feelings; it is wrong—­wrong!  There should be no connection whatever between public duty and the feelings of a man.  One ought to be able to starve one’s enemy without a quiver, to watch him drown without a wink.  In fact, one ought to be a German.  We ought all to be Germans.  Blink, we ought all to be Germans, dear!  I must steel myself!” And Mr. Lavender wiped his forehead, for, though a great idea had come to him, he still lacked the heroic savagery to put it into execution.  “It is my duty,” he thought, “to cause those hungry, sad-looking men to follow me and watch me eat my lunch.  It is my duty.  God give me strength!  For unless I make this sacrifice of my gentler nature I shall be unworthy to call myself a public man, or to be reported in the newspapers.  ’En avant, de Bracy!’” So musing, he rose, and Blink with him.  Crossing the road, he clenched his fists, and said in a voice which anguish made somewhat shrill: 

“Are you hungry, my friends?”

The Germans stopped sifting gravel, looked up at him, and one of them nodded.

“And thirsty?”

This time they all three nodded.

“Come on, then,” said Mr. Lavender.

And he led the way back along the road, followed by Blink and the three Germans.  Arriving at the beech clump whose great trees were already throwing shadows, denoting that it was long past noon, Mr. Lavender saw that Joe had spread food on the smooth ground, and was, indeed, just finishing his own repast.

“What is there to eat?” thought Mr. Lavender, with a soft of horror.  “For I feel as if I were about to devour a meal of human flesh.”  And he looked round at the three Germans slouching up shamefacedly behind him.

“Sit down, please,” he said.  The three men sat down.