nse and taken a great deal of trouble for nothing. I
don't know much about these things, as I told you before, but there is no
nation in the world who wants to attack Germany."

Herr Selingman laid his finger upon his nose.

"That may be," he said. "Yet there are many who look at us with envious
eyes. I am a good German. I know what it is that we want. We want peace,
and to gain peace we need strength, and to be strong we arm. That is
everything. It will never be Germany who clenches her fist, who draws
down the black clouds of war over Europe. It will never be Germany, I
tell you. Why, a war would ruin half of us. What of my crockery? I sell
it all in England. Believe me, young gentleman, war exists only in the
brains of your sensational novelists. It does not come into the world of
real purpose."

"Well, it's very interesting to hear you say so," Norgate admitted. "I
wish I could wholly agree with you."

Herr Selingman caught him by the sleeve.

"You are just a little," he confided, "just a little suspicious, my young
friend, you in your little island. Perhaps it is because you live upon an
island. You do not expand. You have small thoughts. You are not great
like we in Germany, not broad, not deep. But we will talk later of these
things. I must tell you about our Kaiser."

Norgate opened his lips and closed them again.

"Presently," he muttered. "See you later on."

He strolled to his coupe, tried in vain to read, walked up and down the
length of the train, smoked a cigarette, and returned to his compartment
to find Herr Selingman immersed in the study of many documents.

"Records of my customers and my transactions," the latter announced
blandly. "I have a great fondness for detail. I know everything. I carry
with me particulars of everything. That is where we Germans are so
thorough. See, I place them now all in my bag."

He did so and locked it with great care.

"We go to dinner, is it not so?" he suggested.

"I suppose we may as well," Norgate assented indifferently.

They found places in the crowded restaurant car. The manufacturer of
crockery made a highly satisfactory and important meal. Norgate, on the
other hand, ate little. Herr Selingman shook his head.

"My young English friend," he declared, "all is not well with you that
you turn away from good food. Come. Afterwards, over a cigar, you shall
tell me what troubles you have, and I will give you sound advice. I have
a very wide knowledge of