“Ach! so would I,� Smith proclaimed loudly. “They are bad people. Awful bad people.� He met defiantly Black Mayo’s quizzical eyes. “I got no use for them German peoples.�
“Nobody has,� said Mr. Tavis.
“Oh, yes!� Black Mayo declared. “I have. One of my best friends is a German, a fine fellow named Kuno Kleist that I spent months with, in Mexico, helping him collect bugs and butterflies.�
“Why, Mr. Mayo!� said Pete. “You mean to say you don’t hate Germany?�
“I hate the Germany of Prussianism, power-mad Junkerism, the ‘blood and iron’ of Frederick the Great and Bismarck and Kaiser William,� said Black Mayo; “but I love the Germany of Goethe and Schiller and Luther and Beethoven.�
“Germany is one!� Mr. Smith’s voice rang out. “It is one, I say.�
“So are we all, all one.� Black Mayo looked around with a sudden winning smile. “Remember that first Christmas when German and British soldiers came out of the trenches to exchange food and to talk together. ‘You are of the same religion as we, and to-day is the Day of Peace,’ a German said to a Scottish officer. And those men had to be transferred to other parts of the line; they were enemies no longer, but friends; they could not fight one another.
“Facts come out now and then that show the difference in spirit between people and war lords. A German paper recently announced that the people of a certain town had been jailed for improper conduct to prisoners and their names were printed, to make their shame known to coming generations.
“An American consul investigated the case. He found that a trainload of Canadian prisoners had been sidetracked in the little town, and the citizens had found out they were thirsty and starving; so they brought food and drink. This was the crime for which they were imprisoned and held up to shame!
“Oh! the war lords are trying to carry out their policy of frightfulness. But they have studied history to little purpose if they think Edith Cavell and the Lusitania victims and the murdered Belgians and the tortured prisoners are dead.�