Poor Minna was always afraid her husband and I would quarrel.  She knew well how opposite our sympathies were; she could not understand that our arguments were wholly lacking in personal animus.  When I told him of the Allies’ growing superiority in aircraft Rhubarb would retort by showing me clippings about the German trench fortifications, the “pill boxes” made of solid cement.  I would speak of the deadly curtain fire of the British; he would counter with mysterious allusions to Krupp.  And his conclusions were always the same.  “Just wait!  Germany will win!” And he would stroke his beard placidly.  “But, Fritz!” Minna used to cry in a panic, “The gentleman might think differently!” Rhubarb and I would grin at each other, I would buy a tin of tobacco, and we would say good night.

How dear is the plain, unvarnished human being when one sees him in a true light!  Schulz’s honest, kindly face seemed to me to typify all that I knew of the finer qualities of the Germans; the frugal simplicity, the tenderness, the proud, stiff rectitude.  He and I felt for each other, I think, something of the humorous friendliness of the men in the opposing trenches.  Chance had cast us on different sides of the matter.  But when I felt tempted to see red, to condemn the Germans en masse, to chant litanies of hate, I used to go down to the drugstore for tobacco or a mug of chocolate.  Rhubarb and I would argue it out.

But that was a hard winter for him.  The growing anti-German sentiment in the neighbourhood reduced his business considerably.  Then he was worried over Minna.  Often she did not appear in the evenings, and he would explain that she had gone to bed.  I was all the more surprised to meet her one very snowy Sunday afternoon, sloshing along the road in the liquid mire, the little dog squattering sadly behind, her small black paws sliding on the ice-crusted paving.  “What on earth are you doing outdoors on a day like this?” I said.

“Fritz had to go to Brooklyn, and I thought he would be angry if Lischen didn’t get her airing.”

“You take my advice and go home and get into some dry clothes,” I said severely.

Soon after that I had to go away for three weeks.  I was snowbound in Massachusetts for several days; then I had to go to Montreal on urgent business.  Julia went to the city to visit her mother while I was away, so we had no news from Kings.

We got back late one Sunday evening.  The plumbing had frozen in our absence; when I lit the furnace again, pipes began to thaw and for an hour or so we had a lively time.  In the course of a battle with a pipe and a monkey wrench I sprained a thumb, and the next morning I stopped at the drugstore on my way to the train to get some iodine.

Rhubarb was at his prescription counter weighing a little cone of white powder in his apothecary’s scales.  He looked far from well.  There were great pouches under his eyes; his beard was unkempt; his waistcoat spotted with food stains.  The lady waiting received her package, and went out.  Rhubarb and I grasped hands.