Yeovil nodded.

“It’s good enough for criminals and imbeciles,” said the parson, “but think of it for those boys, who might have been marching along to the tap of the drum, with a laugh on their lips instead of Hell in their hearts.  I have had Hell in my heart sometimes, when I have come in touch with cases like those.  I suppose you are thinking that I am a strange sort of parson.”

“I was just defining you in my mind,” said Yeovil, “as a man of God, with an infinite tenderness for little devils.”

The clergyman flushed.

“Rather a fine epitaph to have on one’s tombstone,” he said, “especially if the tombstone were in some crowded city graveyard.  I suppose I am a man of God, but I don’t think I could be called a man of peace.”

Looking at the strong young face, with its suggestion of a fighting prior of bygone days more marked than ever, Yeovil mentally agreed that he could not.

“I have learned one thing in life,” continued the young man, “and that is that peace is not for this world.  Peace is what God gives us when He takes us into His rest.  Beat your sword into a ploughshare if you like, but beat your enemy into smithereens first.”

A long-drawn cry, repeated again and again, detached itself from the throb and hoot and whir of the street traffic.

“Speshul!  Military service, spesh-ul!”

The young clergyman sprang from his seat and went up the staircase in a succession of bounds, causing the domino players and novelette readers to look up for a moment in mild astonishment.  In a few seconds he was back again, with a copy of an afternoon paper.  The Imperial Rescript was set forth in heavy type, in parallel columns of English and German.  As the young man read a deep burning flush spread over his face, then ebbed away into a chalky whiteness.  He read the announcement to the end, then handed the paper to Yeovil, and left without a word.

Beneath the courtly politeness and benignant phraseology of the document ran a trenchant searing irony.  The British born subjects of the Germanic Crown, inhabiting the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, had habituated themselves as a people to the disuse of arms, and resolutely excluded military service and national training from their political system and daily life.  Their judgment that they were unsuited as a race to bear arms and conform to military discipline was not to be set aside.  Their new Overlord did not propose to do violence to their feelings and customs by requiring from them the personal military sacrifices and services which were rendered by his subjects German-born.  The British subjects of the Crown were to remain a people consecrated to peaceful pursuits, to commerce and trade and husbandry.  The defence of their coasts and shipping and the maintenance of order and general safety would be guaranteed by a garrison of German troops, with the co-operation of the Imperial war fleet.  German-born subjects