Moonchild

instantly on his visitor. "You have come from General Cripps?" "Yes, my General, but on my own responsibility. I have an idea —" Foch interrupted him. "But you are in an English uniform!" he could not help saying with brisk Gallic surprise. "Cuchullus non facit monachum," retorted Cyril Grey. "I am half Scotch, half Irish." "Then pray give yourself the trouble to continue." "I may premise that I have told my idea to General Cripps. It convinced him that I am an imbecile or a joker." That was his "fact," his master-argument. It told heavily. The face of Foch grew instantly keen and eager with all expectation. "Let me hear it!" The General reached for a memorandum. Grey laughed. In a few words he repeated his theory of the German plans. "But it is certain!" cried Foch. "One moment; excuse me; I must telephone." He left the room. In five minutes he was back. "Rest easy, Captain Grey," he said, "we shall be ready to catch Von Kluck as he turns. Now, will you do me the pleasure to take this note back to your chief? The British must be ready to strike at the same moment. I won't ask you to stay; but — I beg of you to come to dine with me after the victory." It is impossible to give any idea of how the word "victoire" sounds in the mouth of a French soldier. It has in it the ring of a sword thrust home to the hilt, and the cry of a lover as he seizes his mistress, and the exultation of a martyr who in the moment of his murder reaches conclusively to God. Cyril went back to the British Headquarters, and [330] handed in General Foch's request, through Colonel Mavor, officially. The events of the next week are of the very spine of history. The cruel blow was definitely parried. More still, that first great victory not only saved France for all time, but showed that the men of Bonaparte had come into their own moral sublimity again. It proved 1870 to have been but a transient weakness like our own year of shame when Van Tromp swept our ships from the seas. General Cripps summoned Cyril Grey to his quarters. "I'm afraid," said the old man, "that nothing can be done to recognize your services. That your crazy theory should have proved correct is only one more example — we have many such every day — of the operation of the laws of