and self-sacrifice, and on the softening influences of peace. But what I had intended as subtle irony was discovered by a great conservative journal to be an unassailable argument, supported by facts and figures, demonstrating the futility of the movements for international amity. I was hailed as a bold, clear thinker who had pricked the bubble of unintelligent altruism, who at a time when philanthropists were preaching disarmament had proved that men could never disarm as long as they were born with arms, legs and healthy senses. So David Malcolm was quite unexpectedly raised to some eminence by a conservative English journal which was clamoring for increased naval expenditure; and once discovered, he found himself not without honor in his own country, for he was assailed from the platform of Carnegie Hall by the advocates of a gentle life, and in Congress his work was used as a text-book by those who were fighting for a larger military establishment. The _Morgen-Anzeiger_, in Berlin, printed a translation with the purpose of quelling the opposition to army service, while the reading of a chapter in the French Chamber resulted in an appropriation for experiments in submarines. Such was the effect of my well-intended irony. To-day, of course, the true purport of the facts, figures and argument are better known, but then I had the chagrin of seeing my projectile explode in the wrong camp, and I did not try to right myself, because I feared that to explain the error might nullify the ultimate effect of the explosion. To my mother alone did I trouble to point out my real meaning, and then because she had been shocked to see me assailed in her favorite journal, the _Presbyterian Searchlight_, as a notable example of the result of philosophy unwarmed by religion. That I should have to make my peace with my mother was not surprising, but my old professional mentor, Mr. Hanks, loved a paradox; if he wanted to call a man a fool, he praised him for his wisdom; if he wished to disprove a proposition, he argued for it, adroitly exposing its weakness, and yet he wrote to me indignantly. "I can not understand how from the mass of facts you have gathered you could calmly advance to so cruel an argument," he said. "Your own figures protest against your bloodthirsty philosophy. Machiavelli's Prince is a mollycoddle beside your ideal modern statesman. And yet, Malcolm, you could as easily have produced a work which would have stood for years as a reproach to the diplomacy of our time." Dear old Hanks! It was from his suburban heart that he spoke thus, as the father of four accomplished daughters, and not as the sceptic of the office who was always quick to prick the bubbles of pretence. But it was not long before he had an opportunity to turn ironical himself, and I could fancy the grim smile with which he wrote the despatch which sent me from the academic discussion of war to the study of war at first hand. "Join the Turks at once."