"Well, I certainly hope so!" emphatically declared Jimmie. "The next time we see him I hope it will be through a prison grating!"
"You will probably not have the opportunity of seeing your enemy for some little time," commented their guest. "He is no doubt by this time well on his way towards Flanders!"
"Flanders?" mused Jimmie. "I don't recall any such town as that. I'm not very well posted on the geography of France, though."
"Flanders is a country, not a town," kindly corrected the General. "It is a name used to designate the country called Belgium."
"Oh, I know where that is!" declared Jimmie at once. "That is between France and Germany, isn't it? They stopped the Germans!"
"Yes," sadly replied his informant, "they checked the German advance, but at fearful cost to themselves. It was done in an endeavor to protect their neutrality. The first encounter occurred at Liege."
"Another case of demanding peace, even at the expense of a fight!" put in Jack. "That's Jimmie's creed!" he added.
"Why do they call the country 'Flanders'?" asked Jimmie.
"'Flanders,'" replied the other, "is a name derived from an old nickname or appellation for the people who inhabited that section. For a long time the people who lived there were known as 'Fleed-men,' or men who had escaped from other countries. The name gradually was turned into the present form of 'Flemish,' and the country known as "Flanders'."
"Then the people are made up of contributions from other nations?" inquired Jimmie, very much interested. "They were all mixed up?"