Facing the German Foe

E-text prepared by Brian Sogard, Irma Spehar, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AKRON, OHIO NEW YORK
Copyright, 1915 By The Saalfield Publishing Co.

As long as I can't be at home, said Harry Fleming, I'd rather be here than anywhere in the world I can think of!
Rather! said his companion, Dick Mercer. I say, Harry, it must be funny to be an American!
Harry laughed heartily.
I'd be angry, Dick, he said, finally, if that wasn't so English—and so funny! Still, I suppose that's one reason you Britishers are as big an empire as you are. You think it's sort of funny and a bit of a misfortune, don't you, to be anything but English?
Oh, I say, I didn't quite mean that, said Dick, flushing a little. And of course you Americans aren't just like foreigners. You speak the same language we do—though you do say some funny things now and then, old chap. You know, I was ever so surprised when you came to Mr. Grenfel and he let you in our troop right away!
Didn't you even know we had Boy Scouts in America? asked Harry. My word—as you English would say. That is the limit! Why, it's spread all over the country with us. But of course we all know that it started here—that Baden-Powell thought of the idea!
Rather! said Dick, enthusiastically. Good old Bathing-Towel! That's what they used to call him at school, you know, before he ever went into the army at all. And it stuck to him, they say, right through. Even after Mafeking he was called that. Now, of course, he's a lieutenant general, and all sorts of a swell. He and Kitchener and French are so big they don't get called nicknames much more.