ur
conversation should turn upon military matters here or at the War
Office."

The General saluted. The Prime Minister bowed a little awkwardly.

"So far as I am concerned," the latter declared, "I will be perfectly
frank with you from the start. I know nothing whatever about military
affairs. My job is to govern this country, to make the most of its
resources, and to bring prosperity to its citizens from the English
Channel to the North Sea. We don't need soldiers and never shall, that I
can see. I am firmly convinced that the days of wars are over. The
government of every country in the world is getting into the hands of
the democracy, and the democracy don't want war and never did. If any of
the more quarrelsome folk on the continent get scrapping, well, my
conception of my duty is to keep out of it."

Monsieur Pouilly restrained himself. To judge from his appearance,
however, it was not altogether an easy matter.

"You belong, sir," he said, "to a type of statesman whose rise to power
in this country some of us have watched with a certain amount of
concern, for although it is not my mission here to-day to talk politics,
I am yet bound to remind you that you do not stand alone. The very
League of Nations upon which you rely imposes certain obligations upon
you, some actual, some understood. It is to discuss the situation
arising from your neglect to make the provisions called for in that
agreement that I am here to-day."

Mr. Mervin Brown glanced at some figures which his secretary had laid
before him.

"You complain, I presume, of the reduction of our standing army?" he
observed.

"We complain of that," Monsieur Pouilly replied, "and we complain also
of the gradually decreasing interest shown by your Government in matters
of aeronautics, artillery, and naval construction. We learnt our lesson
in 1914. If trouble should come again, our country would once more be
the sufferer. You would no doubt do everything that was expected of you,
in time. Before you were ready, however, France would be ruined. You
entered into certain obligations under the League of Nations. My
Government begs to call your attention to the fact that you are not
fulfilling them."

"It is my intention within the course of the next few months," Mervin
Brown declared, "to lay before the League of Nations a scheme for total
disarmament."

Monsieur Pouilly was staggered. A little exclamation escaped the
General.

"What about those nation