MY DEAR CHARLES,--Recent events calling for strong comment, I turned to my
friend, my brick-red friend who is able to retain his well-fed prosperous
look notwithstanding the rigours of trench life, Rrobert James McGrregor. I
took a map with me and, calling his attention to the general position,
asked him what about it? McGregor, as you may guess, is a Scot, whose
national sense of economy seems to have spread to his uniform, in that the
cap he wears covers but a third-part of his head, and his tunic (which I
ought really not to call a tunic but a service jacket) appears to have
exhausted itself and its material at the fourth button. Notwithstanding all
this, I attach great weight to his truculent views, and, the better to
incite him into something outright, addressed him in My best Scottish,
which is, at any rate, as good as his best English. "Rrrrrobert," I said,
"what like is the VON HINDENBURG line?" Whereupon McGregor, helping himself
to our mess whisky and cursing it as the vilest production of this vile
War, spoke out.

McGregor has no respect whatever for HINDENBURG or anything which is his.
He says that HINDENBURG and his crew have all along taken the line which
any man could, but no gentleman would. In HINDENBURG he sees the
personification of Prussian militarism, and for the Prussians and their
militarism he has no use whatsoever. I forget what exactly is the Highland
phrase for "no use whatsoever," but its meaning is even worse than its
sound, and the sound of it alone is terrible to hear. Whatever befalls in
the interval, it is certain that when at last McGregor and HINDENBURG meet
they will not get on well together.

McGregor hates militarism. It is entirely inconsistent with his wild ideas
of liberty. As such he is determined to do it down on all occasions and by
every means. Not only is he a Scot, he is also a barrister of the most
pronounced type. Brief him in your cause, and provided it is not a mean one