“Say what you like about the Boches, they don't know the meaning of waste energy.”
“But you can't have method and efficiency in a democracy.”
“There you go! Same old fallacy!”
“No fallacy about it! Efficiency and personal freedom don't go together. They never have and they never will.”
“And what does our personal freedom amount to? When you get down to brass tacks, personal freedom is a mighty poor name for it, speaking for four fifths of the population.”
“Germany doesn't want it, our brand, and we can't force it on her.”
“And without it, she has a mighty good chance of winning this war—”
When the talk begins with the uselessness of wristers, shifts from that to democratic inefficiency, and from that to the probability of Deutschland über Alles, you may be certain of the diagnosis. The disease is cafard.
The sound of a motor-car approaching. Dunham rushes to the window and then swears, remembering our greased-cloth window panes.
“Go and see who it is, Tiffin, will you? Hope it's the mail orderly.”