Other causes contributed to swell the discontent. A regiment of
Russians, out route-marching, had walked across the bowling-screen at
Kennington Oval during the Surrey _v._ Lancashire match, causing
Hayward to be bowled for a duck's-egg. A band of German sappers had dug
a trench right across the turf at Queen's Club.

The mutterings increased.

Nor were the invaders satisfied and happy. The late English summer had
set in with all its usual severity, and the Cossacks, reared in the
kindlier climate of Siberia, were feeling it terribly. Colds were the
rule rather than the exception in the Russian lines. The coughing of
the Germans at Tottenham could be heard in Oxford Street.

The attitude of the British public, too, was getting on their nerves.
They had been prepared for fierce resistance. They had pictured the
invasion as a series of brisk battles--painful perhaps, but exciting.
They had anticipated that when they had conquered the country they
might meet with the Glare of Hatred as they patrolled the streets. The
Supercilious Stare unnerved them. There is nothing so terrible to the
highly-strung foreigner as the cold, contemptuous, patronising gaze of
the Englishman. It gave the invaders a perpetual feeling of doing the
wrong thing. They felt like men who had been found travelling in a
first-class carriage with a third-class ticket. They became conscious
of the size of their hands and feet. As they marched through the
Metropolis they felt their ears growing hot and red. Beneath the chilly
stare of the populace they experienced all the sensations of a man who
has come to a strange dinner-party in a tweed suit when everybody else
has dressed. They felt warm and prickly.