To his excited imagination the tune seemed to go on and on for hours. As a matter of fact the genius of cosmopolitan extraction (who had not been extracted quite far enough to be sure of British tastes) gave the audience four verses where one would have been better. And all this time the anger of the Pacificist grew. His cheeks burned, and the excited pounding of his heart was like to stifle him. He knew himself one, alone, against hundreds; impressing them, no doubt (despite their pretence of indifference), with the courage of a right cause. To face odds like that! It was intoxicating.
At last he could bear it no longer. Just as the band ceased and the rest of the audience subsided again to their morning papers, the Pacificist rose. He walked a little unsteadily. The light of battle flashed from his eyes, meeting and beating down what he took, erroneously, to be the glare of a hostile mob. (As a matter of fact no one noticed him any more). Stumbling, white-faced, with set lips and the face of a visionary, he gained the turnstile. This, this, was victory! One against so many! He had proved himself. He had conquered!
The battle-spirit—for, despite his honest conviction, his forebears had been soldiers and sea-dogs—surged up within him. How splendid it was, this fighting down opposition! What was life, after all, but a fight? He had never realized that before. But now he knew. The flame that burnt in his blood demanded other foes, other worlds to conquer. It had become an urgent need with him to continue fighting; almost anyone would do.
Immediately opposite to the turnstile was the open door of a large building; flags surmounted it, and at each side was a large proclamation in red and white. With shoulders squared, flashing eye, and the demeanour of Napoleon at the head of the Old Guard, the Pacificist entered the recruiting office. "I have come," he said fiercely, "to enlist!"
SUPER-SYMPATHY.
"The crumbling towers, the shattered fanes,
The havoc of the Belgian plains;
Dead mothers, children, priests and nuns,