to say necessary, a club with a large membership is
to me. The more mixed and socially chaotic it is, the more serviceable
it is."

"Of course," said Yeovil, "and I suppose, as a matter of fact, a good
many of your clients belong to the conquering race."

"Well, you see, they are the people who have got the money," said
Herlton; "I don't mean to say that the invading Germans are usually
people of wealth, but while they live over here they escape the crushing
taxation that falls on the British-born subject. They serve their
country as soldiers, and we have to serve it in garrison money, ship
money and so forth, besides the ordinary taxes of the State. The German
shoulders the rifle, the Englishman has to shoulder everything else. That
is what will help more than anything towards the gradual Germanising of
our big towns; the comparatively lightly-taxed German workman over here
will have a much bigger spending power and purchasing power than his
heavily taxed English neighbour. The public-houses, bars, eating-houses,
places of amusement and so forth, will come to cater more and more for
money-yielding German patronage. The stream of British emigration will
swell rather than diminish, and the stream of Teuton immigration will be
equally persistent and progressive. Yes, the military-service ordinance
was a cunning stroke on the part of that old fox, von Kwarl. As a
civilian statesman he is far and away cleverer than Bismarck was; he
smothers with a feather-bed where Bismarck would have tried to smash with
a sledge-hammer."

"Have you got me down on your list of noteworthy people?" asked Yeovil,
turning the drift of the conversation back to the personal topic.

"Certainly I have," said Herlton, turning the pages of his pocket
directory to the letter Y. "As soon as I knew you were back in England I
made several entries concerning you. In the first place it was possible
that you might have a volume on Siberian travel and natural history notes
to publish, and I've cross-referenced you to a publisher I know who
rather wants books of that sort on his list."

"I may tell you at once that I've no intentions in that direction," said
Yeovil, in some amusement.

"Just as well," said Herlton cheerfully, scribbling a hieroglyphic in his
book; "that branch of business is rather outside my line--too little in
it, and the gratitude of author and publisher for being introduced to one
another is usually short-lived. A more se