Yerkes. "If any one wants my opinion, they're afraid we'd talk if they
let us out--more afraid of offending Germans than they are of cholera!
Besides--any fool could know by now we're not sick!"

"There might be something in that," admitted Monty.

"I'd send for the U. S. Consul and sing the song out loud, but for
you!" Yerkes added.

Monty nodded sympathetically.

"Dashed good of you, Will, and all that sort of thing."

"You English are so everlastingly afraid of seeming to start trouble,
you'll swallow anything rather than talk!"

"As a government, perhaps yes," admitted Monty. "As a people, I fancy
not. As a people we vary."

"You vary in that respect as much as sardines in a can! I traveled
once all the way from London to Glasgow alone in one compartment with
an Englishman. Talk? My, we were garrulous! I offered him a
newspaper, cigarettes, matches, remarks on the weather suited to his
brand of intelligence--(that's your sole national topic of talk between
strangers!)--and all he ever said to me was 'Haw-ah!' I'll bet he was
afraid of seeming to start trouble!"

"He didn't start any, did he?" asked Monty.

"Pretty nearly he did! I all but bashed him over the bean with the