“I think it is more of a kind of fever,” says Albert. “No one in particular wants it, and then all at once there it is. We didn’t want the war, the others say the same thing⁠—and yet half the world is in it all the same.”

“But there are more lies told by the other side than by us,” say I; “just think of those pamphlets the prisoners have on them, where it says that we eat Belgian children. The fellows who write those lies ought to go out and hang themselves. They are real culprits.”

Müller gets up. “Anyway, it is better that the war is here instead of in Germany. Just you look at the shell-holes.”

“True,” assents Tjaden, “but no war at all would be better still.”