anding next to Marco said to the young woman who was his companion.
"Thousands of 'em killed. I saw it in big letters on the boards as I
rode on the top of the bus. They're just slaughtering each other,
that's what they're doing."

The talkative Beef-eater heard him.

"They can't even bury their dead fast enough," he said. "There'll be
some sort of plague breaking out and sweeping into the countries
nearest them. It'll end by spreading all over Europe as it did in the
Middle Ages. What the civilized countries have got to do is to make
them choose a decent king and begin to behave themselves."

"I'll tell my father that too," Marco thought. "It shows that
everybody is thinking and talking of Samavia, and that even the common
people know it must have a real king. This must be THE TIME!" And
what he meant was that this must be the time for which the Secret Party
had waited and worked so long--the time for the Rising. But his father
was out when he went back to Philibert Place, and Lazarus looked more
silent than ever as he stood behind his chair and waited on him through
his insignificant meal. However plain and scant the food they had to
eat, it was always served with as much care and ceremony as if it had
been a banquet.

"A man can eat dry bread and drink cold water as if he were a
gentleman," his father had said long ago. "And it is easy to form
careless habits. Even if one is hungry enough to feel ravenous, a man
who has been well bred will not allow himself to look so. A dog may, a
man may not. Just as a dog may howl when he is angry or in pain and a
man may not."

It was only one of the small parts of the training which had quietly
made the boy, even as a child, self-controlled and courteous, had
taught him ease and grace of boyish carriage, the habit of holding his
body well and his head erect, and had given him a certain look of young
distinction which, though it assumed nothing, set him apart from boys
of carelessly awkward bearing.

"Is there a newspaper here which tells of the battle, Lazarus?" he
asked, after he had left the table.

"Yes, sir," was the answer. "Your father said that you might read it.
It is a black tale!" he added, as he handed him the paper.

It was a black tale. As he read, Marco felt as if he could scarcely
bear it. It was as if Samavia swam in blood, and as if the other
countries must stand aghast before such furious cruelties.

"Lazarus," he said, springing to