The Belgian. A noble threat!  But it is right and proper that men like you, who think they are infallible because their cringing flatterers tell them so, should sometimes hear the truth.  You dare, forsooth, to talk to a Belgian of your magnanimity and your desire for peace.  Cannot you realise that our nation has been tempered by outrage and ruin; that exile and the ruthless breaking of their homes only serve to make its men and women more resolute; that even if others were to cease fighting against you, and if her sword were broken, Belgium would dash its hilt in your face till breath and life were driven out of her mangled body; that, in short, we hate you for your cruelty and despise you for your baseness; and that for the future, wherever there is a Belgian, there is one who is the enemy of the thing called KAISER.

The Kaiser. Enough, enough.  I did not come here to be insulted.  If you have suffered, you and your nation, it is because you have deserved to suffer for having dared to set yourself against Germany, whom our good old German god has appointed to lead the way in righteousness to the goal marked out for her.

The Belgian. Sir, when you speak like that you are no doubt a marvel in your own eyes, but to others you are a laughing-stock, a mere scare-crow dressed up to resemble a man, a thing of shreds and patches to whom for a time the inscrutable decrees of Providence have permitted a dreadful power.  But we are resolute to endure to the end, and your blandishments will avail as little as your threats.

* * * * *

MY WATCH.

  The Sage who above a Greek signature nightly
    Emits a succession of eloquent screeds,
  Instructing us firmly but also politely
    How best to supply our material needs,
  Has specially urged us of late, in a shining
    Example of zeal for his frivolous flock,
  With the object of “speed” and “precision” combining
        To “work with our eye on the clock.”

  The precept is sound, and its due application
    Is fraught with undoubted advantage to some,
  But I’m free to remark that my own situation
    Represents a recalcitrant re-sidu-um;
  Clocks I cannot abide with their truculent ticking—­
    A nuisance I always have striven to scotch—­
  And I gain very little assistance in sticking
        To work, if I’m watching my watch.

  For my watch, which I treasure with ardent affection—­
    ’Twas given to me in my juvenile prime—­
  Exhibits a truly uncanny objection
    To keeping an accurate count of the time;
  In the matter of speed it’s a regular sprinter;
    Repairs are a farce; it invariably gains;
  And in Spring and in Autumn, in Summer and Winter
        Precision it never attains.