Mynheer van Ploomp, Frau van Ploomp, and Fräulein van Ploomp sitting
censoriously on the newspaper, _may_ be raging for their country to
come into the war, but they certainly don’t look like it.
One can never judge, of course, by outside appearances, but the casual
observer might reasonably infer from the surface look of things that
Mynheer had not done so very badly by keeping out of the scrap.
As “Patriot”--“Nederlander,” etc., he _may_ write ferocious epistles to
the papers demanding a firm stand by his country on the side of right.
But the compression of his left optic belies the supposition.
Mynheer’s “neutrality” has very comfortably lined his own nest and
his own inside. And yet he knows--none better that, should the tiger
take it into his head, he would be gobbled up at a mouthful. Knows
moreover that, if by any fatal chance the tiger won the game, he would
inevitably be the next morsel to be gobbled.
When Germany is at last on the run, the ferocious bellicose party will
probably come in on the side of the winners. It is not a lofty game.
But it probably pays.