chances at Ypres. Two can play at destructive industrialism, and now
we out-gun you. We are piling up munitions now faster than you. The
essentials of this Game of the War Lord are idiotically simple, but it
was not of our choosing. It is now merely a question of months before
you make your inevitable admission. This is no war to any great
commander's glory. This gentleman in the bowler hat is the victor, Sire;
not you. Assisted, Sire, by these disrespectful-looking factory girls in
overalls."

For example, there is M. Citroen. Before the war I understand he made
automobiles; after the war he wants to turn to and make automobiles
again. For the duration of the war he makes shell. He has been
temporarily diverted from constructive to destructive industrialism. He
did me the honours of his factory. He is a compact, active man in dark
clothes and a bowler hat, with a pencil and notebook conveniently at
hand. He talked to me in carefully easy French, and watched my face with
an intelligent eye through his pince-nez for the signs of comprehension.
Then he went on to the next point.

He took me through every stage of his process. In his office he showed
me the general story. Here were photographs of certain vacant fields
and old sheds--"this place"--he indicated the altered prospect from the
window--"at the outbreak of the war." He showed me a plan of the first
undertaking. "Now we have rather over nine thousand workpeople."

He showed me a little row of specimens. "These we make for Italy. These
go to Russia. These are the Rumanian pattern."

Thence to the first stage, the chopping up of the iron bars, the
furnace, the punching out of the first shape of the shell; all this is