d in the treasury.

This question, too, was answered.

"War has never brought prosperity," Partow had written. "Its purpose is
to destroy, and destruction can never be construction. The conclusion of
a war has often assured a period of peace; and peace gave the impetus of
prosperity attributed to war. A man is strong in what he achieves, not
through the gifts he receives or the goods he steals. Indemnity will not
raise another blade of wheat in our land. To take it from a beaten man
will foster in him the desire to beat his adversary in turn and recover
the amount and more. Then we shall have the apprehension of war always
in the air, and soon another war and more destruction. Remove the danger
of a European cataclysm, and any sum extorted from the Grays becomes
paltry beside the wealth that peace will create. An indemnity makes the
purpose of the courage of the Grays in their assaults and of the Browns
in their resistance that of the burglar and the looter. There is no
money value to a human life when it is your own; and our soldiers gave
their lives. Do not cheapen their service."

"Considering the part that we played at The Hague," observed the foreign
minister, "it would be rather inconsistent for us not to--"

"There is only one thing to do. Lanstron has got us!" replied the
premier. "We must jump in at the head of the procession and receive the
mud or the bouquets, as it happens."

With Partow's and the staff's appeals went an equally earnest one from
the premier and his cabinet. Naturally, the noisy element of the cities
was the first to find words. It shouted in rising anger that Lanstron
had betrayed the nation. Army officers whom Partow had retired for
leisurely habits said that he and Lanstron had struck at their own
calling. But the average man and woman, in a daze from the shock of the
appeals after a night's celebration, were reading and wondering and
asking their neighbors' opinions. If not in Partow's then in the staff's
message they found the mirror that set their own ethical professions
staring at them.

Before they had made up their minds the correspondents at the front had
set the wires singing to the evening editions; for Lanstron had directed
that they be given the ran of the army's lines at daybreak. They told of
soldiers awakening after the debauch of yesterday's fighting, normal and
rested, glowing with the security of possession of the frontier and
responding to their leaders' sentiment;