Think of it, you who live so quietly and peacefully now! Babies who were born in the war grew to be bearded men with babies of their own, and still the war continued.

Those who had served and fought in their stalwart prime grew stiff and bent, and yet the ships and the armies were struggling.

It was no wonder that folk came at last to look upon it as the natural state, and thought how queer it must seem to be at peace.

During that long time we fought the Dutch, we fought the Danes, we fought the Spanish, we fought the Turks, we fought the Americans, we fought the Monte-Videans, until it seemed that in this universal struggle no race was too near of kin, or too far away, to be drawn into the quarrel.

But most of all it was the French whom we fought, and the man whom of all others we loathed and feared and admired was the great Captain who ruled them.
It was very well to draw pictures of him, and sing songs about him, and make as though he were an impostor; but I can tell you that the fear of that man hung like a black shadow over all Europe, and that there was a time when the glint of a fire at night upon the coast would set every woman upon her knees and every man gripping for his musket.