the shadowy evils
from which England had suffered for generations. So far as regards
London and the provincial towns, he went on, whether for good or evil,
we have a large German population, and if they choose to make reports to
any one in Germany as to events happening here which come under their
observation, we cannot stop it, and it would not even be worth while to
try. As regards matters of military and naval importance, there was a
special branch, he assured me, for looking after these, and it was a
branch of the Service which was remarkably well-served and remarkably
successful. Having said this, he folded the list up and returned it to
me, rang the bell, gave me a frozen hand to shake, a mumbled promise
about another appointment as soon as there should be a vacancy, and that
was the end of it."

"About that other appointment," Mr. Hebblethwaite began, with some
animation--

"Damn the other appointment!" Norgate interrupted testily. "I didn't come
here to cadge, Hebblethwaite. I am never likely to make use of my friends
in that way. I came for a bigger thing. I came to try and make you see a
danger, the reality of which I have just begun to appreciate myself for
the first time in my life."

Mr. Hebblethwaite's manner slowly changed. He pulled down his waistcoat,
finished off a glass of wine, and leaned forward.

"Norgate," he said, "I am sorry that this is the frame of mind in which
you have come to me. I tell you frankly that you couldn't have appealed
to a man in the Cabinet less in sympathy with your fears than I myself."

"I am sorry to hear that," Norgate replied grimly, "but go on."

"Before I entered the Cabinet," Mr. Hebblethwaite continued, "our
relations with Foreign Powers were just the myth to me that they are to
most people who read the _Morning Post_ one day and the _Daily Mail_ the
next. However, I made the best part of half a million in business through
knowing the top and the bottom and every corner of my job, and I started
in to do the same when I began to have a share in the government of the
country. The _entente_ with France is all right in its way, but I came to
the conclusion that the greatest and broadest stroke of diplomacy
possible to Englishmen to-day was to cultivate more benevolent and more
confidential relations with Germany. That same feeling has been spreading
through the Cabinet during the last two years. I am ready to take my
share of the blame or praise, whichever in the fu