"I saw him passing," General Knoff explained.
"What are you doing here, Mr. Stubbs?" asked Hal. "I thought you were fired. You might as well return home."
"No," said Stubbs. "It's true I was fired, but I've been hired again. You see, The New York Gazette scooped every paper in the United States on the signing of the armistice."
"Scooped 'em twice, in fact, you might say, Mr. Stubbs," Chester put in slyly.
Stubbs frowned.
"Never mind that," he said. "The war's over and we are all glad. And I'm glad to be with you here at this minute. I am assigned to stay with the American army of occupation, and I suppose I shall see considerable of you. And it is my hope that we may all return to America together."
The general's daughter now placed tea and cakes on the table, and the general invited all to pitch in.
"Now," he said, "we all are friends once more, eh?"
Neither Hal nor Chester replied; they looked back over four years of war, and in memory they saw the ruin and destruction wrought in many lands; and Chester expressed the sentiment of the American nation when he said to himself in answer to General Knoff's query:
"No, we are not all friends once more—not yet."