There was a distinctly audible flutter throughout the room. Here, at last, was something definite to support the general contention that "we aren't through with the Germans yet." A lady up in front leaned across the aisle and whispered piercingly to her husband:
"There! What did I tell you?"
Another lady arose halfway from her seat and anxiously inquired:
"How soon do you think it will come, Mr. Thane?"
She had a son just turning seventeen.
"That is a question I am afraid you will have to put to God or the German Emperor," said Courtney, with a smile.
"When David Strong was home this spring I asked him what he thought about it," said Editor Pollock. "I published the interview in the Sun. He was of the opinion that the Germans had had all they wanted of war. I tried to convince him that he was all wrong, but all I could get him to say was that if they ever did make war again it would be long after the most of us were dead."
"David Strong didn't see anything of the war except what he saw in the hospitals," said a woman contemptuously.
"Permit me to correct you, Mrs. Primmer," said Alix Crown, without arising. "David Strong was under fire most of the time. He was not in a base hospital. He was attached to a field hospital,—first with the French, then with the British, and afterwards with the Americans."
"In that case," said Courtney, facing her, "he was in the thick of it. Every man in the army, from general down to the humblest private, takes his hat off to the men who served in the field hospitals. While we may differ as to the next war, I do not hesitate to say that Dr. Strong saw infinitely more of the last one than I did. It may sound incredible to you, ladies and gentlemen, but my job was a picnic compared to his. As a matter of fact, I have always claimed that I was in greater danger when I was in the American Ambulance than when I was flying, quite safely, a couple of miles up in the air. At any rate, I FELT safer."