"Claptrap!" was his angry reply. "You wealthy people want your
fleshpots again. We've a few more million men, haven't we?
America has a few more millions?"
"Your own loss, Robert, has made you--and quite naturally, too--
very bitter," his master said gently. "You must let those who
have thought this matter out come to a decision upon it. Beyond a
certain point, the manhood of the world must be conserved."
"That sounds just like fine talk to me, sir, and no more; the sort
of stuff that's printed in articles and that no one takes much
stock of. Words were plain enough when we started out to fight
this war. We were going to crush the German military spirit and
not leave off fighting until we'd done it. There was nothing said
then about conserving millions of men. It was to be fought out to
the end, whatever it cost."
"And you were once a pacifist!"
"Pacifist!" the man repeated passionately. "Every human being
with common sense was a pacifist when the war started."
"But the war was forced upon us," Julian reminded him. "You can't
deny that."
"No one wishes to, sir. It was forced upon us all right, but who
made it necessary? Why, our rotten government for the last twenty
years! Our politicians, Mr. Julian, that are prating now of peace
before their job's done! Do you think that if we'd paid our
insurance like men and been prepared, this war would ever have
come? Not it! We asked for trouble, and we got it in the neck.
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