Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Anuradha Valsa Raj and PG
Distributed Proofreaders
1918
"I am for England and England only," John Lutchester, the Englishman,asserted.
"I am for Japan and Japan only," Nikasti, the Jap, insisted.
"I am for Germany first and America afterwards," Oscar Fischer, the
German-American pronounced.
"I am for America first, America only, America always," Pamela Van
Teyl, the American girl, declared.
They were all right except the German-American.
Mefiez-Vous!
Taisez-Vous!
Les Oreilles Ennemies Vous Ecoutent!
The usual little crowd was waiting in the lobby of a fashionable Londonrestaurant a few minutes before the popular luncheon hour. Pamela VanTeyl, a very beautiful American girl, dressed in the extreme offashion, which she seemed somehow to justify, directed the attention ofher companions to the notice affixed to the wall facing them.
"Except," she declared, "for you poor dears who have been hurt, that isthe first thing I have seen in England which makes me realise that youare at war."
The younger of her two escorts, Captain Richard Holderness, who worethe uniform of a well-known cavalry regiment, glanced at the notice alittle impatiently.
"What rot it seems!" he exclaimed. "We get fed up with that sort ofthing in France. It's always the same at every little railway stationand every little inn. 'Mefiez-vous! Taisez-vous!' They might spare usover here."
John Lutchester, a tall, clean-shaven man, dressed in civilian clothes,raised his eyeglass and read out the notice languidly.
"Well, I don't know," he observed. "Some of you Service fellows—notthe Regulars, of course—do gas a good deal when you come back. I don'tsuppose you any of you know anything, so it doesn't really matter," headded, glancing at his watch.
"Army's full of Johnnies, who come from God knows where nowadays,"Holderness assented gloomily. "No wonder they can't keep their mouthsshut."
"Seems to me you need them all," Miss Pamela Van Teyl remarked with asmile.
"Of course we do," Holderness assented, "and Heaven forbid that any ofus Regulars should say a word against them. Jolly good stuff in them,too, as the Germans found out last month."
"All the same," Lutchester continued, still studying the notice, "newsdoes run over London like quicksilver. If you step down to the Americanbar here, for instance, you'll find that Charles is one of thebest-informed men about the war in London. He has patrons in the Army,in the Navy, and in the Flying Corps, and it's astonishing howcommunicative they seem to become after the second or third cocktail."
"Cocktail, mark you, Miss Van Teyl," Holderness pointed out. "We poorEnglishmen could keep our tongues from wagging before we acquired someof your American habits."
"The habits are all right," Pamela retorted. "It's your heads that arewrong."
"The most valued product of your country," Lutchester murmured, "ismore dangerous to our hearts than to our heads."
She made a little grimace and turned away, holding out her hand to anew arrival—a tall