“It won’t stop,” Phil replied savagely, “until the present outfit are put out and the legal government is put in. The treaty is being violated right and left. I can’t see what this man Count Rosen expects to gain by it. The three great Powers when they hear what is going on down here must decide that the high-handedness of Rosen and Klinger have only made things more difficult to adjust.” “Maybe that’s where the count expects to gain,” Alice said seriously. “Maybe their country wishes to make difficulties--to show the other nations that three countries cannot together run one little group of islands without war and bloodshed.” “I, for the life of me,” Sydney declared, “cannot see why the United States and England don’t pull up stakes and leave the islands to Herzovinia. I know we have our eyes on the fine harbor of Tua-Tua, but I can’t see when we are going to use it.” “Maybe you can’t see!” Phil replied sarcastically, “and one reason you can’t see is that you haven’t given it a minute’s thought. Herzovinia has a body of intelligent men in her government whose duty it is to study such questions. It is quite evident those men have advised their nation to endeavor to acquire Kapua, and this is her way of trying to acquire it. The captain of the British war-ship told us the other day that he had seen their machinery of annexation work over in Africa. “First comes the merchant, pushing his way in by brute strength and awkwardness, shoving out all other merchants by staying close to his job. Then a row between the merchants and the natives, followed closely by the arrival of a war-ship. Then a punitive expedition against the natives who have dared to resent the oppression of the merchants. Then diplomatic correspondence assuring other nations there is no thought of acquisition of territory and then all of a sudden up goes the Herzovinian flag, and the thing has been accomplished. As I said before,” Phil ended his impromptu speech, “I can’t see why the count hesitates about hoisting his flag. We can’t stop him. We haven’t men enough.” CHAPTER XVII BEN STUMP LISTENS Carl Klinger paced the porch of the count’s home in visible annoyance. Count Rosen surveyed the angry overseer complacently from his easy chair under the shade of the thatched roof porch. “Don’t be an idiot, Klinger,” he said. “You can’t afford to indulge in personal vengeance. The American officer has gotten ahead of you and put you to shame before the natives, and I think you deserved it. Your work was childish. Putting that cartoon on your wall was bad enough, but to attempt to thrash a native relative of Tuamana under the eyes of his own friends and supporters was infantile. If you don’t stop swearing vengeance upon that young midshipman I’ll be forced to lock you up in your own house and put a guard over you. To attempt such barefaced outlawry as an attack upon the person of an American naval officer by hired thugs would only lead to intervention by the war-ships.”