“Do you think there’ll be more wars? Do you think Germany will be in a position to fight again very soon?”
“Bah, you bolster up an old bogey out here. Germany is the bogey of yesterday, not of to-morrow.”
“She frightened us out of our sleep before,” said Jack, resentful.
“And now, for the time being, she’s done. As a war-machine she’s done, and done for ever. So much scrap-iron, her iron fist.”
“You think so?” said Jack, with all the animosity of a returned hero who wants to think his old enemy the one and only bugbear, and who feels quite injured if you tell him there’s no more point in his old hate.
“That’s my opinion. Of course I may be wrong.”
“Yes, you may,” said Jack.
“Sure,” said Somers. And there was silence. This time Somers smiled a little to himself.
“And what do you consider, then, is the bogey of to-morrow?” asked Jack at length, in a rather small, unwilling voice.