He'd as soon
have had that German for a pal for a day's fishing or a walk in
the country, as any one else. They'd neither of them got anything
against the other. Where the hell is this spirit of hatred? You
go down the line, mile after mile, and most little groups of men
facing one another are just the same. Here and there, there's
some bitter feeling, through some fighting that's seemed unfair,
but that's nothing. The fact remains that those millions of men
don't hate one another, that they've got nothing to hate one
another about, and they're being driven to slaughter one another
like savage beasts. For what? Mr. Stenson might supply an
answer. Your great editors might. Your great Generals could be
glib about it. They could spout volumes of words, but there's no
substance about them. I say that in this generation there's no
call for fighting, and there didn't ought to be any."
"You are not only right, but you are splendidly right, Mr. Cross,"
Julian declared. "It's human talk, that."
"It's just a plain man's words and thoughts," was the simple
reply.
"And yet," Fenn complained, in his thin voice, "if I talk like
that, they call me a pacifist, a lot of rowdies get up and sing
`Rule Britannia', and try to chivy me out of the hall where I'm
speaking."
"You see, there's a difference, lad," Cross pointed out, setting
down the tankard of beer from which he had been drinking. "You
talk sometimes that white-livered stuff about not hitting a man
back if he wants to hit you, and you drag in your conscience, and
prate about all men being brothers, and that sort of twaddle.
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