She stopped; he stopped. Holford took the wheel, and we got away. It was time, for the sun shone after the storm, and Deborah beneath the tiles and the eaves already felt its reviving influence compel her to her interrupted labours of federation. We warned the village policeman at the far end of the street that he might have to suspend traffic again. The proprietor of the giddy-go-round, swings, and cocoanut-shies wanted to know from whom, in this world or another, he could recover damages. Mr. Lingnam referred him most directly to Mrs. Bellamy.... Then we went home. After dinner that evening Mr. Lingnam rose stiffly in his place to make a few remarks on the Federation of the Empire on the lines of Co-ordinated, Offensive Operations, backed by the Entire Effective Forces, Moral, Military, and Fiscal, of Permanently Mobilised Communities, the whole brought to bear, without any respect to the merits of any _casus belli_, instantaneously, automatically, and remorselessly at the first faint buzz of war. 'The trouble with Us,' said he, 'is that We take such an infernally long time making sure that We are right that We don't go ahead when things happen. For instance, I ought to have gone ahead instead of pulling up when I hit that bicycle.' 'But you were in the wrong, Lingnam, when you turned to the right,' I put in. 'I don't want to hear any more of your damned, detached, mugwumping excuses for the other fellow,' he snapped. 'Now you're beginning to see things,' said Penfentenyou. 'I hope you won't backslide when the swellings go down.' THE SONG OF SEVEN CITIES I was Lord of Cities very sumptuously builded. Seven roaring Cities paid me tribute from afar. Ivory their outposts were--the guardrooms of them gilded, And garrisoned with Amazons invincible in war. All the world went softly when it walked before my Cities-- Neither King nor Army vexed my peoples at their toil. Never horse nor chariot irked or overbore my Cities, Never Mob nor Ruler questioned whence they drew their spoil. Banded, mailed and arrogant from sunrise unto sunset, Singing while they sacked it, they possessed the land at large. Yet when men would rob them, they resisted, they made onset And pierced the smoke of battle with a thousand-sabred charge! So they warred and trafficked only yesterday, my Cities. To-day there is no mark or mound of where my Cities stood. For the River rose at midnight and it washed away my Cities. They are evened with Atlantis and the towns before the Flood. Rain on rain-gorged channels raised the water-levels round them, Freshet backed on freshet swelled and swept their world from sight, Till the emboldened floods linked arms and flashing forward drowned them-- Drowned my Seven Cities and their peoples in one night!