ch are quite sufficient for me, although it was impossible for me to
get up in Parliament and state them, that Germany is secretly making
preparations for war either before the end of this year or the
beginning of next."

Hebblethwaite threw himself into an easy-chair.

"Sit down, Wyatt," he said. "Your dinner can wait for a few minutes. I
have had another man--only a youngster, and he doesn't know
anything--talking to me like that. We are fully acquainted with
everything that is going on behind the scenes. All our negotiations with
Germany are at this moment upon the most friendly footing. We haven't a
single matter in dispute. Old Busby, as you know, has been over in Berlin
himself and has come back a confirmed pacifist. If he had his way, our
army would practically cease to exist. He has been on the spot. He ought
to know, and the army's his job."

"Busby," Wyatt declared, "is the silliest old ass who ever escaped
petticoats by the mere accident of sex. I tell you he is just the sort of
idiot the Germans have been longing to get hold of and twist round their
fingers. Before twelve months or two years have passed, you'll curse the
name of that man, when you look at the mess he has made of the army.
Peace is all very well--universal peace. The only way we can secure it is
by being a good deal stronger than we are at present."

"That is your point of view," Hebblethwaite reminded him. "I tell you
frankly that I incline towards Busby's."

"Then you'll eat your words," Wyatt asserted, "before many months are
out. I, too, have been in Germany lately, although I was careful to go as
a tourist, and I have picked up a little information. I tell you it
isn't for nothing that Germany has a complete list of the whole of her
rolling stock, the actual numbers in each compartment registered and
reserved for the use of certain units of her troops. I tell you that from
one end of the country to the other her state of military preparedness is
amazing. She has but to press a button, and a million men have their
rifles in their hands, their knapsacks on their backs, and each regiment
knows exactly at which station and by what train to embark. She is making
Zeppelins night and day, training her men till they drop with exhaustion.
Krupp's works are guarded by double lines of sentries. There are secrets
there which no one can penetrate. And all the time she is building ships
feverishly. Look here--you know my cousin, Lady Emily Fakenha