"No."
"I remember it for one remark. Its author says that Germany is the only country on earth where the men's hands are better kept than the women's."
Miss Field clapped her hands in delight.
"Delicious!" she cried. "Splendid! And it is true," she added, more seriously. "Did you see the women cleaning the streets in Munich?"
"Yes."
"And harvesting the grain, and spreading manure, and carrying great burdens—doing all the dirty work and the heavy work. What are the men doing, I should like to know?"
"Madam," spoke up the bearded stranger by the window, in a deep voice which made everybody jump, "I will tell you what the men are doing—they are in the army, preparing themselves for the defense of their fatherland. Do you think it is of choice they leave the harvesting and street-cleaning and carrying of burdens to their mothers and wives and sisters? No; it is because for them is reserved a greater task—the task of confronting the revengeful hate of France, the envious hate of England, the cruel hate of Russia. That is their task to-day, madam, and they accept it with light hearts, confident of victory!"
There was a moment's silence. Mrs. Field was the first to find her voice.
"All the same," she said, "that does not justify the use of cows as draft animals!"
The German stared at her an instant in astonishment, then turned away to the window with a gesture of contempt, as of one who refuses to argue with lunatics, and paid no further heed to the Americans.