An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1 55 " have always boasted of our mechanical powers! The most "successful aviators it is true are of our own blood, Americans. "But Americans are men of business, and would sell an im– " proved patent gridiron to the devil himself without any "sentimental scruples. '' Remember, that if we are once successfully invaded there " is an end to us as an independent nation ; if we are got down ·' we shall be kept down, and suffer more than we can easily "understand. "It may be difficult for a Norwich audience to realise that "it is possible they may be rated heavier than they are now, "but if unluckily they should have to pay up a German war "indemnity they will know better. Even the ingenuity of "our Town Council would pall before the demands of a war "indemnity. "It would be all too late then. We should be like the '' Scotchman who for years was pestered by an insurance agent '' to insure his house, but wl10 kept on putting off the evil day "of payment of premiums. Early one morning, however, he "found his house was on fire, and then he went rushing up the "street calling for the agent, and complainiug bitterly that he "never was about when a man wanted to <lo·business with him. "We shall be like that Scotchman. We shall uot have paid the "necessary insurance, and we shall see our house burned. But "I hope our insurance agent-a pushful person called Roberts– " has by tllis time almost persuaded us to pay the very small "premium he asks for." When I wrote this my conception of war was based on the old rules of fair :fighting, vigorous rules enough, but tempered more or less by chivalry, and I never imagined that the new Germanic idea was to terrify their opponents not so much by ferocious :fighting but by absolute cruelty to men, women, and children after the :fighting was over, and by the wanton destruction for the sake of destruction of works of art. Well, seven years and more passed away before my very straight prophesy came true, and we were utterly unprepared for war, and but for extraordinary luck and courage we should now have been a conquered race, and subject to all the horrors which Belgium suffered. It is perhaps too early to begin to prophesy again, but I do think after the bitter lesson we have had we shall never be caught napping again. The end of February was very snowy. H.H.H. and his wife came Saturday to Monday, but it was hardly the weather for flint collecting. Early in March I had to go to London and stayed at Hampstead, walked round the Heath with my daughter-