Monsieur Segotin's Story
the sooner I was done with the world the better. So I went back to the shop and sold a few cigars that afternoon and sat down to wait for that which was to come. But"—and M. Segotin sipped comfortably from his glass—"I was wrong, you see. Three years have gone by and I am still alive, and I am once more hopeful. Those people have done their worst, and the world has not yet come to an end. Indeed it may be that it is only beginning again. There are signs, Monsieur, there are signs of a new birth among the nations. Perhaps, after all, it is grateful that we ought to be to those people. They have wakened us up. We were drifting, with closed eyes, pleasantly along towards a horror besides which even this war would have been a bagatelle. And what we have all to do is to seize upon that piece of knowledge, yes, and act upon it. For the danger is still there, unless those people are definitely shown that the world will have none of their ideas.
"Yet I hear talk in London of the impossibility of crushing the sixty millions of our friends across the North Sea. I hear talk of their being disillusioned by their failure. People tell me that they will never try again. But, my good Monsieur, whether it be impossible or not to crush them, it has got to be done. For they will otherwise assuredly try again. What! are we to allow them to believe that they have been able to hold the entire world by the throat for three years and at the end to make a peace in which they will have a word to say? Do
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