"And were the baths by any chance called Denmark, Austria, and
France in 1870?" a third asked.

"No, they were respectable British tubs. But until Mr. Smith
had drowned his third wife people didn't get suspicious. They
argued that 'men don't do such things.' That sentiment is the
criminal's best protection."




IV

THE SPIRIT OF THE PEOPLE


We passed into the zone of another army and a hillier country,
where the border villages lay more sheltered. Here and there
a town and the fields round it gave us a glimpse of the
furious industry with which France makes and handles material
and troops. With her, as with us, the wounded officer of
experience goes back to the drill-ground to train the new
levies. But it was always the little crowded, defiant
villages, and the civil population waiting unweariedly and
cheerfully on the unwearied, cheerful army, that went closest
to the heart. Take these pictures, caught almost anywhere
during a journey: A knot of little children in difficulties
with the village water-tap or high-handled pump. A soldier,
bearded and fatherly, or young and slim and therefore rather
shy of the big girls' chaff, comes forward and lifts the pail