"This is fine," he cried--"just fine. What a splendid fellow Sir Edward Grey is! It was he who proposed a Conference in the Turco-Balkan difficulty, and now it is he again who is going to settle this." "I am afraid the Turco-Balkan Conference didn't help much," I replied. "Ah, but this will. After all, what's the heart of the quarrel? The murder of the heir to the Austrian throne. A ghastly affair, I'll admit, but everything can be settled." "Has Admiral Tresize mentioned a letter which he received from Vienna a day or two ago?" I asked. "Yes," replied Bob, "but of course it was pure imagination. Do you know, I admire the Kaiser. He's a good man, a religious man." I coughed. "Of course it is easy to imagine a case against him," he went on lightly; "but it has no foundation in fact. I told the Admiral so. We had quite an argument about it, and I maintained that whatever the circumstances, England had no occasion to be dragged in, and that it would be criminal on the part of our statesmen if they allowed it. Evidently Sir Edward Grey thinks the same. Of course you've seen that he has proposed a Conference. He has suggested that Germany, France, Italy, and Great Britain, who are not directly connected with the quarrel, should meet, and settle it." "Will Germany accept?" "Of course she will," replied Bob confidently, "we shall soon hear that the trouble is at an end." "I hope you are right, but if the Kaiser holds the views expressed by the Admiral's friend, I very much doubt it," was my rejoinder. When we read that a Russian Cabinet Council was held, and regarded the Austrian demands as an indirect challenge to Russia, and when we also read that Austria, without giving Servia any chance for further consideration, had declared war upon her, and seized certain of her vessels which happened to be on the Danube, we began to fear trouble, although even then we in St. Ia never seriously believed that England would be directly implicated in it. I am stating these things here, not that they are not known to every one, but because they will help to make the story I am writing clearer to the reader, especially when it reaches the later stages. Later the news came to us that there was partial Russian mobilisation along the Austrian frontier, and that as a consequence a Council was held in Berlin. Of course we knew nothing of what was said in that Council, but when we heard that Russia's partial mobilisation had become general, we began to shudder at the gradual darkening of the European sky. As all the world knows now, Germany declared war on Russia on August 1, and I remember meeting Bob outside the St. Ia post office that day.