“And have to take off their hats every time the Star Spangled Banner is played,” laughed Frank. “I tell you it will be a bitter pill for those fellows to swallow.”
“It sure will,” agreed Tom. “But wait till you hear the rest of the armistice terms. They’ve surely made a thorough job of it. They’ve taken away from Heinie everything except his shirt, and he’ll have to borrow a barrel to go home in.”
“Is it as bad as that?” chuckled Billy.
“Worse,” replied Tom. “Just listen to this and judge for yourself. The Germans have got to give up five thousand heavy and light field guns, one thousand seven hundred airplanes, three thousand trench mortars, thousands of machine guns, all their submarines——”
“For the love of Pete!” interrupted Billy.
“All their submarines,” went on Tom, “ten of the dreadnoughts, eight battle cruisers, six light cruisers, fifty destroyers, five thousand locomotives, one hundred and fifty thousand railroad cars, and a lot more things that I didn’t have time to jot down. But that will give you some idea of what our victory means to us and what defeat means to them. It hasn’t turned out a very profitable thing for the fellows that set out to loot the world, has it?”
“Well, it clinches the whole business anyway,” remarked Frank. “It makes it impossible for Germany to resume the war even if she wanted to, and as far as that’s concerned, the armistice is just as good as an actual treaty of peace.”
“Exactly,” agreed Billy. “I guess we’ve seen our last fighting.”
“And it sure has been some fighting,” observed Frank, as his thoughts went back over all the events of the last few months. “It’s a miracle that we’ve lived through it.”
“There have certainly been times when I wouldn’t have given a plugged nickel for our chances of coming out alive,” agreed Billy, thoughtfully. “Oh, if only Bart was here to celebrate with us.”