Chapter I

John Benn Hazel lived with his mother, and Maurice, his younger brother, at Campden Hill Terrace. Mrs. Hazel was a widow of long standing; well-to-do, well-preserved, well-powdered, dyed and corseted, and experienced in the ways of the world. Formerly, as she admitted, "a frightful flirt," she was still prone to recurrent attacks of the milder kind of friskiness. Of her two sons, she was chiefly mother to the more gifted Maurice--an illustrator of books of the exotic, precious, subtle type--and periodicals of the same pale cerulean hue. Before the War Maurice possessed a Marcelle wave and a Beardsley Line--both attained by infinite perseverance. Later he acquired the certificate of a Pilot-Aviator, and flew a Handley-Page bomber on the Western Front.

Mother and sons agreed marvellously, unless when one of Mrs. Hazel's elderly adorers, persons of ripe years and desirable financial solidity, endeavoured to persuade her to forsake her widowed state. The most favoured of these was a certain Mr. Herman Van Ost, London partner and representative of a thriving and long-established firm of Dutch bulb-merchants. As a stepfather John Hazel would have regarded the Dutchman with more or less placidity. But Maurice found the idea intolerable, and thus the bulb of Van Ost's hopes remained in the shop window; showing a pale green spike at intervals, in earnest of latent possibilities in the flowering line,--but never achieving more.

All three Hazels were members of the same mixed Club,--(who does not know "The Tubs" in Werkeley Street, W.)--and firmly believed the Parish of St. James's the hub of the civilised world. All three were ardent votaries of Bridge; all yearned to be admitted into the inner circles of Society, but were content to grasp at the outer fringe. All three adored Russian Ballet, Musical Comedy, Film Plays and up-to-date Revues. Each revelled in the Tango and thought no fashion in modes, colours, coiffures, furniture, manners and morals, so quite too frightfully fetching as the last. They were of sport, sporting; but their talk turned chiefly upon things of the theatre theatrical; and they always knew to a thousand how much the last Big Production had cost the Syndicate running such-and-such a West End house.

Sometimes they disagreed as to the exact weight of the gloves worn by the French pugilistic champion, and So-and-so, the hope of England--in their classical contest at the Punching Club; or as to the precise source whence Didi Debée obtained her celebrated strings of pearls, or grew warm over the rival merits of famous exponents of the Tango; or contradicted one another touching the precise terms in which Betty Ballorme had notified the Duke of Blankshire that a less economical nobleman would be more welcome in her flat. But if they quarrelled they made friends again over some more recent item of gossip. Jimmy Greggson had got a new gag, or a fresh wheeze in the Second Act of "The Filberts" at Riley's Theatre, just before the famous 'Dance of The Varalette.' Or a new supper-dish or a fresh dance-step would have appeared upon the menu of some eclectic restaurant cum-night-club, run by managers who catered for every variety of taste.

It will be seen that the sons of Mrs. Hazel were happy in their parent, whose business gift was not to be despised. In partnership with a peeress of somewhat clouded reputation she ran a millinery and flower-shop at a double frontage in Dove Street, Piccadilly: adding to her annual life-interest on her late husband's not inconsiderable fortune, a really handsome sum.

Probably her elder son inherited Mrs. Hazel's business aptitude though such a legacy is more usually held to be derived from the paternal side. The product of one of the lesser public schools (Loamborough may be quoted) and graduate of Brazingham University, he decided that it was possible to do Big Things without a string of piffling letters tacked on to your name. So, the City of London happening to beckon at that juncture, he leaped gladly to her grimy embrace, and his thirty-second birthday, occurring on the third of July, 1914, found him formally received and accredited as Junior Partner in the thriving firm of Dannahill, Lee-Levyson and Hazel, insurance-brokers of Cornhill. He was engaged to Beryl Lee-Levyson. He looked forward--under the summer sky fast blackening with fearful presages of tempest--not exactly with rapture, but with content--to their approaching marriage; a house in Eaton Terrace, S.W.,--Eaton Square being the address of the Lee-Levysons--having been inspected and approved, a week before the gates of Terror opened and the world grew pale with dread. In that first fierce spate of blood the elder son of Lee-Levyson, a promising young lieutenant in a crack Hussar regiment, was overwhelmed and swept away. The favourite grandson of Dannahill, Head of the Firm, a Sergeant in a London Territorial Regiment, later rendered distinguished service, and died gloriously on the thirteenth day of the First Battle of the Aisne. That September evening John Hazel got home to Campden Hill unusually late for dinner, bringing with him a clumsy parcel which contained:

_Item_: one coat highly polished at the elbows, kept for office night-work.

_Item_: a silver inkstand, a birthday present, inscribed: "_From S. and M.H._" (Sara and Maurice Hazel) "_to J.B.H., July 6th, 1914._"

Item: a tinted photograph of Beryl Lee-Levyson, a tall, willowy young woman in narrow diaphanous garments, with tightly-banded hair of pale gold, a bluish-pink complexion, a straight nose with a ripple in the bridge, large and well-opened light grey eyes, and the kind of smile that advertises an excellent set of teeth. It bore the inscription:

"_From Girlie, with Love to Her Best Boy._"

A box of cigars, a silver cigarette box, some well-browned meerschaum holders, and a burned briar-root pipe, completed the inventory of the property contained in the shapeless parcel which John Hazel lugged up to his room, and dumped upon his bed.

"What are these things?" asked his mother, coming in to tell John not to wait to dress, as she and Maury were going to look in at Riley's to see the 'Dance of the Varalette' once again before Jimmy Greggson went to the Front....

"Of course; good old Jimmy's a London Terrier! ... Did you ask about those? ..." said John, who stood at the looking-glass in shirt-sleeves, brushing his coarse strong curly hair with two big ivory-backed brushes, and meeting the maternal eyes in the mirror with something not unlike a scowl. All the principles instilled at Loamborough, by dint of many poundings, forbade him to embrace his mother and weep; yet strange wild impulses urged him to commit this sin against the Code of Correct British behaviour. He went on, looking at her in the glass, deepening his scowl and speaking gruffly: "They'd be frightfully in the way at the office.... I rather thought you'd look after them until I get back from the Front!"

There was a moment's pregnant silence in the room, while Mrs. Hazel with a wildly thumping heart, was realising how awfully she had dreaded that it would be Maurice who would have to go! ... Then she rustled over to John's side, reached up on tiptoe, though she was a tall woman, and giving him two little pecking kisses on the angle of his blue-shaven brown jaw, murmured something about getting up some champagne to-night to make up for the tinned _entrées_ at dinner, and rustled out of the room--John knew--to tell the news downstairs.

"What? Old J. going? ... Good for him!" was Maurice's languidly-approving comment on the intelligence.

Nobody grumbled, though John did delay to change, and came down arrayed in the gladdest rags his well-supplied wardrobe boasted, to tell his mother and Maurice of Sam Dannahill's glorious death. Such a frightful knock for the Firm, coming on the heels of the bad news about Beauchamp Lee-Levyson!--and how the Boss had taken the grim wire from the War Office "like a regular First Class Old Brick."

Ah, if in that bad quarter of an hour succeeding the opening of the telegram John could have looked through the fortunately opaque glass of the door with "Senior Partner" painted on it,--he would have seen no dignified white-haired City Insurance-broker, telling with a dry eye but a trembling lip how bravely Sam had died! but a frantic old grandsire, tearing his hair and beard, and crying even as David in the high gate-chamber: "My child!--my hope and comfort! O if it had been granted that I might die for thee, my boy, my beloved one!"

Pray observe John Benn Hazel, standing on the Daghestani hearthrug, with his back to the fern-filled fireplace in the Briton's customary style.

You saw him as a broad-shouldered, lean-flanked, deep-chested young man of thirty-two, six feet three in his stockings and proportionately powerful. His huge frame of bone, knit with solid muscle, was sparingly padded with tough hard flesh, covered with dull, dry brown skin that looked as though it needed to be soaked in blazing sunshine to become sleek and soft. Coarse, wiry, curly hair, densely black as the broad beetling brows and the deep-set eyes under them, closely capped his high dome-topped skull, and grew low upon his forehead,--tinged with blue where it was most closely clipped on the temples and about the ears,--and at the nape of the long thick neck, that needed the razor's frequent application even as the strong jaws, the long, deeply-channelled upper-lip, and the chin, quite abnormally long, with a dent in its squared end. His was a huge salient nose, thick and boldly curved, with mobile nostrils; and a large, rather loose-lipped mouth, purplish-red and frankly sensual, with a quirk of humour at the deeply-cut corners, and displaying a formidable array of big white teeth when he laughed. His large, well-shaped ears did not lie sufficiently close to his head for beauty, and the prominent Adam's apple of his muscular brown throat was the despair of City collar-makers; while no glove that hosier ever supplied could be got to button over his great wrist,--the joint of the ulna, Maurice bragged,--being as big as a pony's pastern. His feet were huge and clumsy as his hands, a fact too well known of Mrs. Hazel's Pomeranian. His excellent opinion of himself was much evident when he talked in his loud, deep, booming voice, or laughed at jokes of his own manufacture, which appealed to him more than others. When his sense of humour was really touched, his guffaw was an outrage on the nerves of other people, and fragile articles within reach of his lengthy arms were wont to be swept from shelves or stands. But Maurice was not driven to put his fingers in his ears, on this particular evening; nor was Mrs. Hazel to glance even once in apprehension at her Dresden china shepherdesses simpering on the mantel-shelf.

She came into John's room again that night, long after they had parted, with an excuse about being anxious to make sure,--in case he should not yet have switched off the electric lights,--that his blinds were closely drawn down behind the open windows, and the new curtains of green casement-cloth properly closed. The police had warned householders all along the Terrace. Not in the least deceived, John sat up in bed, looming bigly in a blatant suit of pink-striped silk pyjamas, conscious that upon his pillow was a big wet patch of which a Briton's hardy eyes ought to have been ashamed. The mother looked absurdly young, it seemed to her son,--with her still abundant auburn hair, as yet only lightly crisped with grey,--hanging in a thick loose plait down the back of her pale blue _crêpe_ dressing-gown, as she retreated from the window,--to examine the War-arrangements of which she had had to switch on the light:--pecked him again--upon his forehead this time--and said with elaborate casualness:

"You told us--among other amusing things--to-night at supper"--John was pleased to find that he had been amusing--"about the papers you had had to fill at the Army Recruiting place." ...

"Saying how old I am, and where I was born,--and what my father's nationality was--and what my religion is," John told her with a cheerful grin: adding as she lingered, apparently in expectation: "But the really funny things--regular howlers!--were on the spoiled papers lying about." His big body shook with a chuckle that was not genuine.

"Never mind the funny things just now! How did you answer that question about your father? ... What nationality did you say his was?" Her blue-grey eyes, still brilliant and effective, sparkled feverishly under knitted eyebrows. Her voice was sharp and strained, in the ears of her son. He answered with a dull flush darkening his heavy features:

"I said he was British. Isn't that good enough?" He added as he hugged his great bony knees, and stared over their barrier at the worried face of his mother: "You don't suppose I'd be ass enough to make a false declaration, even though the Pater's governor happens to be a Palestine Jew! Is the old chap still alive, by the way? If so, he must be getting on for a hundred!"

"He was sixty-nine when I saw him at Malta thirty years ago, and taller and broader than any of his sons--as upright as a column. You've a look of him--there are times when I see it!--but you take after your father more! ..."

"At any rate my father was naturalised an Englishman, and Hazel sounds English enough," said John.

"Yes--oh, yes!"

As she drummed on the foot-rail of the bedstead, imparting a rather unpleasant vibration to the tautened nerves of her elder son, John coughed a deep hollow cough to cover his embarrassment, and said gruffly;

"What's the matter with your telling me about my father and his people? I've never asked before, but I think I'd better know!"

"His first name was John, like yours, but the name is really Hazaël. The Hazaëls were wealthy merchants, exporters of produce from the Mediterranean Coast--and wines--chiefly from vineyards of their own."

"That stuff I've seen advertised--Palestine Port, Tokay and Muscatel,--sound and nourishing, twenty-five years old?"

"It's very good--and your father has often told me that even before the Colonies were founded in 1827,--when I've heard there were only ten Jews at Jaffa--his father's father's great grandfather was a vine-grower and exporter of wine. The business originally started in Egypt--they have a business house to-day at Alexandria--and another at Jaffa and a branch at Malta--where your father and I first met."

"Stop! ... What about you?"

"Me.... Oh--well! I was sixteen, and frightfully romantic, and supposed to be going in for what people called 'a decline.' ... Anæmia would be the proper name for it in these days: and Hull, where your grandfather had his place of business, was cold and gloomy; and Malta was supposed to be the cure.... I loved Malta! What girl wouldn't? All sunshine and flowery gardens, and violet sea, and turquoise skies. And all the fruit and' flowers one wanted--and a handsome man to squire one about! For your father was quite charming. He spoke beautiful English, and French like a native; he had been educated at Paris, they said, and when my father told me of John's intentions, I was ready to jump over the moon!"

She broke off, and John roused himself to say:

"Anyway, if the Pater was a Syrian Jew, your governor was British enough! ... Of course I never saw him, as the old man was dead and buried before we went to live with my grandmother. But Symons does sound like a good old English name!"

"That's why your grandmother persuaded your grandfather to adopt it. His real name was Simonoff, and she never liked it! She was a Yorkshire Isaacson!"

There was a pregnant silence before John asked in muffled accents:

"Was my grandfather on your side a Russian?" and was clubbed by the reply:

"He was a Russian Jew from Moscow."

"Oh, come! Don't rub it in!" The bedstead creaked protestingly.

"Dearie, you must have guessed! You've always known that he did business in hides and tallow and tar, between Hamburg and Hull."

"I remember Hull when I was a kid, and the warehouse, and Old Mendel, who used to bring me peppermint-rock when he came to see my grandmother. He managed the business for her, didn't he, until my Uncle Ben took it over? But--my grandfather a Russian Jew! Let's bless our stars he wasn't a German! Where were you married to my father?"

"In a Maltese Synagogue. We lived at Malta until your father brought us to England, to establish a business-branch at Southampton. And we had hardly been settled there a year--you were only three when John died.... Pneumonia--this climate never really suited him! And I went home to mother with you and Maury, a baby of six months old. There was no bother about money. You know your father left us comfortably off!"

John cleared his throat and nodded. The bitterness of the last pill Fate had administered puckered his palate yet. Between the Jew of Palestine and the Jew of Russia, he had been wrought all Jewish. Not a single globule of British blood mingled with the Oriental tide that galloped through his veins. He asked, not wanting to know particularly:

"Did my father's people drop you, after he died, or was it you who decided to drop them?"

His mother returned with a sprightlier air--she was now sitting on the bedside.

"Oh!--well!--it was like this. While John was alive, his father, old Mr. Hazaël, sent me kind messages very often in his letters,--always written to John in Hebrew, by Amos the eldest son. For John came third in the family. Amos and Isaac had been years married and had heaps of children before John met with me. And after John died and we went to live at Hull, the letters kept on coming. It was my father's head-clerk who always translated them--Old Mendel was a learned man!--and wrote back the answers I dictated. Then my father died--poor father!--he never could forgive me for being only a daughter!--and Cousin Ben took the business over--and mother and I, with you and Maury--came here to London to live. Do you think I did wrong in dropping the correspondence? You know how your father's fortune was settled on you two children, with a life-interest for me; we need not go into that! There was nothing more to come to us--under any circumstances! And I wanted my two boys to be brought up as English gentlemen, and I don't think I've done quite so badly--do you?"

Her tone was almost pleading. John reached out a lengthy arm and hugged his mother warmly:

"Not by half, Old Thing! On the contrary. You thought it would be best for me and Maury to be British, and you rubbed it into us that we were, from the time we began to talk.... I remember at Loamborough, a Fifth Form fellow said to me over some rotten boggle of mine at Sunday Ques: 'With that bally big nose of yours, Hazel major, you ought to know all about the Children of Israel--' And, by George! I welted the beggar until he apologised. Later on, when I knew more about the Pater, I told myself that the English strain came from the mother's side. Now you've exploded that idea; I don't know that I mind much! ... Lots of people we're friendly with are as much Hebrews as ourselves,--and taking us in the lump, I call us a loyal lot!" He dug his long chin into the bedclothes covering the big knees he hugged; and went on speaking: "And Jewish blood is strong red stuff to have in one's veins, mind you! Great lawyers, great financiers, great actors, singers, painters, writers--people who are things and do things!--people who count--how many of them have got it!--in bulk or else diluted. And some of the prettiest women--and girls--"

"You're thinking of Beryl!"

"Well, I was thinking of Beryl...--Lee Levyson may belong to a Yorkshire family. He says so, and I've no wish to contradict him. And Dannahill blows a frightful lot about his good old English ancestors. But all the same--" He broke off to smile at his mother, who,--not as a rule demonstrative towards her elder son,--was stroking his big wrist, and half-absently trying to span it with the inadequate measure of her thumb and middle-finger; and ended: "You can take it from me that there ain't a single member of the Firm who oughtn't--if the truth were worth telling--to have a capital 'J' on his disc."

"His disc?"

"Well, I was speaking metaphorically. I mean the round tin identification-tag that's sewn inside of Tommy's khaki jacket, and worn on a chain soldered round his wrist when he's going to the Front. Mine'll be 'Private J.B. Hazel, No. 000, X Platoon, F. Company, 4th Battalion, 448th City of London (Fenchurch Street) Royal Fusiliers.'"

"Do they put all that?"

"I rather think so, with letters for your religious denomination. Con. for Congregationalist, Wes. for Wesleyan, Meth. for Methodist, Bap. for Baptist, P.B. for Plymouth Brethren, C.S. for Christian Scientist, Mug. for Muggletonian, C.E., Church of England, R.C., Roman Catholic; J. for Jew, and _Nil_ if you aren't of any religion. And I'd put down '_Nil_' for mine!"

"What made you do that? Why not Church of England?"

"But I'm not Church of anything, any more than you and Maurice or the Lee-Levysons--or anybody!--belonging to the set of people we visit and meet and dine.... Nice, pleasant, sociable heathens--that's what we are, every one of us! We have plum-pudding at Christmas; and salt-fish with egg-and-oyster sauce on Good Fridays; and we drop in at Westminster Abbey to hear the Carols; and at Westminster Cathedral or Farm Street for the Passion Music;--or the Greek Church near the Russian Embassy, because the singing is worth hearing,--and other people go! And we scrum into St. Paul's for a Public Thanksgiving--or a Day of Humiliation, or a big Funeral or any other kind of Function.... And St. George's Hanover Square for Society weddings,--or the Brompton Oratory.... But religion.... Have any of us got it? ... 'You can search me!' as the American fellow says in the revue.... Still, if you'd like me to alter the letters on my disc I don't mind doing it. Only--instead of '_Nil_' there'll be a big 'J' for Jew!"

She waxed shrill, driven beyond herself, used words long forgotten:

"But you're not one. You've never even set foot inside a Synagogue. We don't observe the Shabbos--I mean the Sunday!--we eat _triphah_ meat like Gentiles. We're _Meshumad_--apostates, don't you understand? Orthodox Jews wouldn't even speak to us!--aren't we well enough as we are?"

"Would my grandfathers have thought so? Or my father?" ...

She caught her breath and clutched at her bosom, the deep, slow voice was so unlike the younger John's. Unobservant of the consternation in her face, he went on speaking, gradually recovering the manner and tone most usual with him:

"Alive, they'd have disowned us. Not being alive--what we observe or don't observe, can't affect them! The notion of a dead man stretching out a hand from the grave, and grabbing hold of his son by the scruff to drive the unlucky beggar on in the ancient ruts of his own prehistoric prejudices is exploded. For the dead are DEAD. There's no getting over that! And to let their thoughts, feelings, desires, convictions, influence us in Anything is to my mind, sheer sentimental piffle." John blew himself out importantly and waved away the subject, but came back, having something more to say: "I'm an ambitious chap in my way.... I'd like to make enough money on the Stock Exchange to buy the freehold of Covent Garden; and turn the Market,--the Arcades,--the shops and the Opera House into a Pleasure City,--run on American lines. But I've no ambition to live after I'm dead,--that I know of! ... If I get wiped out at the Front it won't make any difference to me whether they stick a cross over me--or a shield with some Hebrew letters painted on a white deal board.... Beryl can get married the day after if she wants to! ... _I_ shan't ever know she's being kissed by another man. Nor shall I be one jot worse or better off because of the Good or Bad marks set against me. It matters how you live your life, because Morality is necessary--to preserve Health and maintain Decency, and so uphold the Law. But when one dies one's done with!--and the wisest rule of existence is, to live as long as possible, and enjoy things while one can! To succeed, to become famous, that's the only immortality--and to leave a son to carry on your name is a way of cheating Death!" He ended this confession of his creed by saying rather wistfully: "I meant to ask you.... Do you--do you think there's any chance of Beryl's marrying me before I go?"

"To the Front! ... Why shouldn't there be? Why not ask her?" ...

"Thanks awfully for the tip. I will!"

He was cheered by her absolute belief that he could not but prevail. For if she had forgotten her faith, and turned her back upon her people; she was a mother and a loving one. There was motherhood in her face and in her voice as she asked John:

"Haven't you even told Beryl--what you--where you're going, dear?"

"No! so if she's got a white feather keeping up her sleeve for me, she'll be disappointed, that's all! My hat!--listen to that clock striking! Do you understand it's gone two! You won't have any beauty-sleep,--and I've got to be at Regimental Headquarters at ten sharp to-morrow, to get my kit with the rest of the Fourth Battalion, and weigh in at Eaton Square at 11.30 to break the great news and show myself to the girl."

But when Mrs. Hazel had finally departed, John got out of bed, switched on a light and searched on the shelf that contained his private library, for a fat one-volume Encyclopædia that had been a School Prize. After some delving in this mine of knowledge, he emerged the wiser by the information appended:

"JEWS, an Asiatic race (Semitic), descended from the Hebrew Patriarch Abraham. Original stock migrated 2,000 B.C. from Ur in Chaldea, an important centre of civilisation, to the land of Canaan (Phœnicia) and from thence in time of scarcity to the rich pasture-lands of Egypt; from whence tradition has it that their leader and lawgiver, Moses, was divinely inspired to lead them, by way of the Red Sea Gulf and the Sinaitic Wilderness. Through his teachings they renounced polytheism and adopted a monotheistic form of worship. Language, Hebrew, a variant of the Canaanitish branch of the Semitic Group, approximating closely to Phœnician or Moabite."

The richer by this gem, John put back the book, switched off the light and got back into bed.

Sleep delayed in coming. As he stared wide-eyed into the darkness, fragmentary recollections of that long-dead father formed fresh pictures in his brain. He saw a room, with a table laid for dinner with white napery and glittering silver, the high child's chair by which he stood, a chubby boy in petticoats, waiting for strong, gentle arms to lift him to the seat. While the owner of the arms, a tall man, dark and grave, washed his hands at a shining metal laver hanging on the dining-room wall beside the door. The tall man wore his hat during this ceremony, and the towel he used was long and narrow, and had embroidered ends....

A similar laver had hung on the wall in his grandmother's private sitting-room, John remembered; carefully dusted, but never used by anybody as far as he had known. And over the laver had hung a plaque of metal, embossed with Hebrew characters: such a _mezusah_ as one saw affixed to doorposts in the City: thickening as one got nearer to Houndsditch: becoming dense in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel Road and the Commercial Road, E....

He was destined to enjoy no beauty-sleep that night.

For this materialistic, hard-headed, commonplace young City insurance-broker was loyal of nature, capable of warm attachments; faithful in friendship and honourable; according to his somewhat narrow Code. And the country in which he had been reared, the home in which Life had unfolded for his infant consciousness, the associations amongst which he had developed from a gawky boy into a tall young man, were English: and he had not known previously how much that meant to him.

England was John Hazel's England, the City of London his by choice and adoption; the Tom Tiddler's Ground where he, a citizen and a patriot, had meant to pick up as much of the good stuff Money as he possibly could get. He loved Great Britain, her history, traditions, rulers and institutions with a love blind, instinctive, and deeply rooted, that embraced her Colonies and the Dominions Beyond the Seas. He had never lumbered up on his huge feet to do honour to the National Anthem; or cheered the King and Queen and the Prince of Wales, and other notabilities passing in procession to the Guildhall or elsewhere,--or listened to a patriotic speech at a City dinner,--or a West End public charity-function, without a big lump rising in his throat.

And since the blizzard of War had burst upon this, his mother-country, and the new, strange, dreadful life had replaced the pleasant, easy-going old one, his love for England had become a rage. The tramp of martial boots going through the darkened streets; the heavy roll of guns, ammunition and baggage-lorries; the columns of bronzed faces under khaki cap-peaks, streaming under arches of railway stations; the dreadful news bruited by the newspapers, shouted in the streets, clubbing you when you opened your Latest Edition;--the mourning weeds on the backs of strangers and friends; the darkness of streets and restaurants and public places; the thickly-curtained windows of one's own home and one's neighbours' houses; the Spy Scare--and the hovering, haunting menace of Invasion by Aircraft--increased his patriotic fever day by day. Great tears had splashed upon the dirty drab paper he had signed when he enlisted. And they were the tears of an Asiatic;--a Semite whose ancestors had come out of Ur in Chaldea--and whose native language was a variant of the Canaanitish thingumbob. Perhaps no genuine Englishman would have shed them. And yet, some pathetic parting-scenes at Railway Stations had removed John's previous impression that hefty, hardy, masculine Britons are never known to cry.

One is sorrowful to remember that beyond the narrow range of this young man's prejudices, and the stultifying influences of his environment, extended boundless vistas of which a more liberal and comprehensive range of reading;--fuel for the engines of the winged chariot of Thought and Imagination--might have made John Hazel free....

But he lay prone, dull and unimaginative; staring over the bedclothes at the pale watery gleam of the dressing-mirror opposite, while out of the mighty Past--reverberating and flashing to this hour with the thunders and lightnings of Sinai,--Patriarchs, Law-giver, Judges, Prophets and Sages, Poets, Kings, Statesmen, Patriots, Preachers, Warriors, Artificers and Craftsmen of vanished Israel and living Judæa--dominated by One Figure, unspeakably more benign and glorious--looked down in solemn pitying wonder on the young City insurance-broker, who was depressed by the sudden discovery, that not only on the father's side but on the mother's,--he had been born a Jew.

"Never mind, Old J.B.H.!" he told himself encouragingly. "Even if your ancestors did come out of Egypt with Moses, you're a pup of the Big Bull Bitch. And I'll tell you what, my boy! Good old England may count herself thundering lucky, if she gets a few hundred thousand others of the same breed to fight for her in this War!"