"You would not believe it, would you?" he went on, "but the whole country is governed wrongly, and they are allowing the Germans to hoodwink us at every corner."
"If that is so," was my answer, "it seems strange that the Germans should have been driven back from the Marne. How is it that when they got so near to Paris they did not take it?"
"Ah, that is because they hated the English so. They had Paris in their hands practically, and might have been there now if they had not hated the English."
"That is very interesting," I said. "How did it come about?"
"Well, you see, the German generals had made all arrangements to march into Paris, but they gave way to a fit of anger, and determined to crush the English instead. It was a false move on their part, and but for that we should have been done for."
"How lucky for us," I replied.
"Yes, but they are arranging to get to Calais by another road now. They have everything fixed up for the invasion of England."
"What, the Germans have?"
"What they are going to do is this," and he spoke very solemnly. "First of all they are going to take Calais; then they are going to bring their big guns and bombard Dover. After that, they are going to lay mines in two lines, allowing a lane for the German boats to land two hundred thousand men in Dover. They are going to be flat-bottomed boats, and I have it on good authority that the Kaiser is coming with them."
"What! that he is coming over in these flat-bottomed boats with two hundred thousand men?" I asked.