I can only do one thing at a time.
CHAPTER XI
RENAISSANCE
There is a learned cartoonist in our land who takes pleasure in asking himself, what do billiard-balls and cross-word puzzles and bull-fiddles and boiled shirts and door-mats think of this world?
But what I would like to know is the exact psychological reaction of the men who are ordered to handle the big modern siege guns. During the war a great many people performed a great many strange tasks, but was there ever a more absurd job than firing dicke Berthas?
All other soldiers knew more or less what they were doing.
A flying man could judge by the rapidly spreading red glow whether he had hit the gas factory or not.
The submarine commander could return after a couple of hours to judge by the abundance of flotsam in how far he had been successful.
The poor devil in his dug-out had the satisfaction of realizing that by his mere continued presence in a particular trench he was at least holding his own.
Even the artillerist, working his field-piece upon an invisible object, could take down the telephone and could ask his colleague, hidden in a dead tree seven miles away, whether the doomed church tower was showing signs of deterioration or whether he should try again at a different angle.