uncontrollable.

* * * * *

HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.

(_The German KAISER and a wounded Belgian Officer, a Prisoner._)

_The Kaiser._ So, then, you are still in arms against me, still persisting
in your insane desire for battle and bloodshed? Will nothing content you?
Must you compel us to continue in our enmity when by a word peace might be
established between us, and Belgium might take her place at the side of
Germany as a sister-nation striving with us to promote the cause of true
civilisation?

_The Belgian._ It is useless, Sir, to say such things to any Belgian.

_The Kaiser._ Why useless? Do you not wish that death and ruin and misery
should cease?

_The Belgian._ Certainly we do. No one more ardently than the Belgians, for
it was not we who desired war or began the contest. But when you talk of
stopping we must remind you that it was by your deliberate choice that war
was treacherously forced on us. What could we do except defend ourselves
against the dastardly blow that you aimed at our life? And after that it
was not by us that Louvain was destroyed, that old men and women and
children were ruthlessly massacred. Do you think such scenes can be wiped
out of the memory of a nation, so that her men shall turn round and kiss
the bloodstained hand that has tried to throttle them? Surely you expect
too much.