explained the King; "then it
becomes a war tax. That's what I mean when I say conduct your wars on
business lines. Don't tax yourself, tax your enemy! England is the one
country we can fight on our own terms. She can't get at us. We are an
inland power; there isn't a coast within three hundred miles of us; and
Dreadnoughts can't walk on land, you know. They really can't!" he added,
as though there might be some doubt among those who had not yet given
the matter their consideration.

"I assure you, gentlemen, that war on England, if scientifically
conducted, would be a profitable thing. I've been reading a book by a
man named Norman Angell, who says that war doesn't pay. Well, the reason
for that is we don't conduct our wars on the proper lines. Now if we
made war on England----"

"Your Majesty," entreated the Prime Minister, "may we proceed to
business?"

"If we made war on England," persisted the King, "we should not have to
send out a single regiment, or impose any extra taxation on ourselves;
in fact we should save. We should simply raise our railway and hotel
tariffs fifteen or twenty per cent. to all Englishmen, except children
in arms; children up to thirteen half price. There's the whole thing in
a nutshell; no difficulty, no difficulty whatever."

At this point, to the Premier's annoyance, Professor Teller took up the
question with a humorous appreciation of its possibilities.

"But, sir," he inquired, "how should we know that they were Englishmen?
They might disguise themselves as Americans."

"They couldn't!" said the King. "An Englishman trying to talk American
makes as poor an exhibition of himself as an American trying to talk
English; and besides, you don't know the British character! Penalize
them in the way I am suggesting and they would flaunt their nationality
in our faces; they would wear Union-jack waistcoats and carry in their
pockets gramophones which played 'God save the King' when you touched
them. They would make a point of showing us that they didn't care
twopence for our fifteen per cent.; in fact, their Tariff Reformers
would applaud us--they would put it in large headlines in all their
newspapers, and call it an object lesson and would demand a general
election on the strength of it."

"But supposing, sir," inquired the Professor, "that they did not come at
all? We have to remember that we live largely by our tourists; and if we
eliminate the English tourist----"

"Better and bett