Patriot

At Colmar, in Alsace-Lorraine, a beady-eyed French lawyer stuck out his right forefinger, wagging it before the broad, shiny nose of an Alsatian priest, the Abbe Haegy. "Ha!" snorted the lawyer, "look me in the eye! Look into the eyes of a Frenchman, M. l'Abbe, and tell me if you will not shout with me 'VIVE LA FRANCE!'"

For a long moment the Abbe Haegy hesitated. He owns several newspapers whose policy looks toward the eventual autonomy of Alsace. He had brought this suit against Le Journal of Paris for libelously aspersing his patriotism as an Alsatian. Now this French lawyer was wagging a hypnotic finger and demanding that the Abbe declare himself on the side of France, which now holds Alsace-Lorraine.

"Look at me! [finger wagging), look into the eyes of a Frenchman! [wagging more slowly] Will you not shout? . . ."

"Yes! Ah, mais oui!" shouted the Abbe Haegy suddenly, "I am French! VIVE!! VIVE LA FRANCE!! ... I withdraw my suit. . . . VIVE LA FRANCE!! . . . Look into my eyes, Monsieur, the eyes of a Frenchman, I swear it! VIVE LA FRANCE!!"

All present, despatches told, celebrated the instantaneous Frenchification of honest Alsatian Abbe Haegy by joining with him and the presiding magistrate in fervent hymning of "La Marseillaise."