He actually denounced his own countrymen as a race of oppressors." "He would," answered Dick calmly.

"What did I say to you a minute ago?
He's advanced, you know." "Advanced!" sneered Mr.Chubble, and then Dick Hazlewood stopped and contemplated his companion with a thoughtful eye.
"I really don't think you understand my father, Mr.Chubble," said Dick with a gentle remonstrance in his voice which Mr.Chubble was at a loss whether to take seriously or no.
"Can you give me the key to him ?" he cried.
"I can." "Then out with it, my lad." Mr.Chubble disposed himself to listen but with so bristling an expression that it was clear no explanation could satisfy him.

Dick, however, took no heed of that.

He spoke slowly as one lecturing to an obtuse class of scholars.
"My father was born predestined to believe that all the people whom he knows are invariably wrong, and all the people he doesn't know are invariably right.

And when I feel inclined to deplore his abuse of his own country I console myself with the reflection that he would be the staunchest friend of England that England ever had--if only he had been born in Germany." Mr.Chubble grunted and turned the speech suspiciously over in his mind.
Was Dick poking fun at him or at his father?
"That's bookish," he said.
"I am afraid it is," Dick Hazlewood agreed humbly.