He paused again, lengthily, then struggled on. "I have been requested to state that the German Imp--Empire--that it certainly isn't right for those Dutch--Germans, I mean--they haven't got any more business in Belgium than I have myself, but I--I feel constrained to say that I had to accept whatever side of this debate I got on the postal card, and so I am constrained to take the side of the Dutch. I mean the Germans. The Dutch are sometimes called--I mean the Germans are sometimes called the Dutch in this country, but they aren't Dutch, though sometimes called Dutch in this country.
Well, and so--so, well, the war began last August or about then, anyway, and the German army invaded the Belgian army. After they got there, the invasion began. First, they came around there and then they commenced invading. Well, what I feel constrained--"
He came to the longest of all his pauses here, and the awful gravity of the audience almost suffocated him. "Well," he concluded, "it don't look right to me."
"Four minutes!" the chairman announced, for Ramsey's pauses had worn away a great deal more of this terrible interval than had his eloquence. "Opening statement for the negative: Miss D. Yocum.
Four minutes."
As Dora began to speak, Ramsey experienced a little relief, but only a little--about the same amount of relief as that felt by a bridegroom when it is the bride's turn to "respond," not really relief at all, but merely the slight relaxation of a continuing strain. The audience now looked at Ramsey no more than people look at a bridegroom, but he failed to perceive any substantial mitigation of his frightful conspicuousness. He had not the remotest idea of what he had said in setting forth his case for Germany, and he knew that it was his duty to listen closely to Dora, in order to be able to refute her argument when his two-minute closing speech fell due but he was conscious of little more than his own condition. His legs had now gone wild beyond all devilry, and he had to keep shifting his weight from one to the other in order even to hope that their frenzy might escape general attention.
He realized that Dora was speaking rapidly and confidently, and that somewhere in his ill-assembled parts lurked a familiar bit of him that ojbected to her even more than usual; but she had used half of her time, at least, before he was able to gather any coherent meaning from what she was saying. Even then he caught only a fragment, here and there, and for the rest--so far as Ramsey was concerned--she might as well have been reciting the Swedish alphabet.
In spite of the rather startling feebleness of her opponent's statement, Dora went at her task as earnestly as if it were to confute some monster of casuistry. "Thus, having demonstrated that ~all~ war is wrong," she said, approaching her conclusion, "it is scarcely necessary to point out that whatever the actual circumstances of the invasion, and whatever the status of the case in international law, or by reason of treaty, or the German oath to respect the neutrality of Belgium, which of course was grossly and dishonorably violated--all this, I say, ladies and gentlemen of the Lumen Society, all this is beside the point of morals. Since, as I have shown, ~all~ war is wrong, the case may be simplified as follows: All war is morally wrong. ~Quod erat demonstrandum~.
Germany invaded Belgium. Invasion is war. Germany, therefore, did moral wrong. Upon the legal side, as I began by pointing out, Germany confessed in the Reichstag the violation of law. Therefore, Germany was justified in the invasion neither morally nor legally; but was both morally and legally wrong and evil. Ladies and gentlemen of the Lumen Society, I await the refutation of my opponent!"
Her opponent appeared to be having enough trouble with his legs, without taking any added cares upon himself in the way of refutations. But the marvellous Dora had calculated the length of her statement with such nicety that the chairman announced "Four minutes," almost upon the instant of her final syllable; and all faces turned once more to the upholder of the affirmative.
"Refutation and conclusion by the affirmative," said the chairman.
"Mr. R. Milholland. Two minutes."
Therewith, Ramsey coughed as long as he could cough, and when he felt that no more should be done in this way, he wiped his face--again an act of necessity--and quaveringly began:
"Gentlemen and ladies, or ladies and gentlemen, in making the refutation of my opponent, I feel that--I feel that hardly anything more ought to be said."
He paused, looked helplessly at his uncontrollable legs, and resumed:
"I am supposed to make the reputa--the refutation of my opponent, and I feel that I ought to say quite a good deal more. In the first place, I feel that the invasion has taken place. I am supposed--anyhow I got a postal card that I am supposed to be here to-night.
Well, in talking over this matter with a couple of seniors, they told me I was supposed to claim this invasion was mor'ly and legally all right. Well--" Here, by some chance, the recollection of a word of Dora's flickered into his chaotic mind, and he had a brighter moment.
"My opponent said she proved all war is wrong--or something like that, anyhow. She said she proved it was wrong to fight, no matter what. Well, if she wasn't a girl, anybody that wanted to get her into a fight could prob'ly do it." He did not add that he would like to be the person to make the experiment (if Dora weren't a girl), nor did the thought enter his mind until an hour or so later. "Well," he added, "I suppose there is little more to be said."
He was so right, in regard to his own performance, at least, that, thereupon drying up utterly, he proceeded to stand, a speechless figure in the midst of a multitudinous silence, for an eternity lasting forty-five seconds. He made a racking effort, and at the end of this epoch found words again. "In making my argument in this debate, I would state that--"
