or wrong!" cried the patriot, and the mob cheered. Well, let the mob not be surprised if he, Paul Minas, found the sentiment singularly fatuous. He listened with new ears to the National Anthem. Even poor, timid, quavering little Miss Todd could, with a holy zeal, sing:
Scatter his enemies,
And make them fall!
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks;
On Thee our hopes we fix,
God save us all!"
He drew endless comfort from the picture of his deluded fellow-citizens, packed into the town hall, singing that last line with all their might!
Occasionally he lost his temper, under the stress. Once when Mr. Kingsley implied that his attitude was based on sophistry, Paul broke forth in an impassioned counter-charge. "Christliness," he concluded, "the most civilizing of all attitudes, assumes that men are brothers. The War Office assumes that they are members of opposing camps, all but one of which contain 'bloody foreigners.' I feel no urge to assert the superlative virtues of my particular nation and kill a lot of foreigners to prove the fictitious assertion. Why should I accept the mob's version? I've never accepted its opinion on any other issue. If I did I should have to accept its disapproval of outlandish traits that are a vital part of my own nature, which would be spiritual suicide. Forget 'honour' and 'righteousness,' cut out the hypocrisy, the drooling jingoism and sentimentality, and call on Mars. He's your man—not God. I should imagine by now your God is bloody well fed up with the whole of creation. I know I am. Do what you like with it—you and the people who understand its interests!"
