The Presbyterian minister was a scholar, broad-minded, open, honest. He had moreover finished his education at Berlin University, and had, as the Colonel knew, ever since his student days maintained touch with his German friends. Mr. Geddes had come home convinced that Germany was not seeking a quarrel. "Hamburg stands to lose by war," he told the Colonel, "And Hamburg knows it." "What about Berlin?" the other asked. "Berlin's militarist," the other admitted. "And Berlin's watching Ulster as a cat watches a mouse--you find that everywhere; professors, soldiers, men in the street, even my old host, Papa Schumacher, the carpenter, was agog about it.--Was Ulster in Shetland?--Was the Ulster Army black?--Would it attack England?--Well, our War Office must know all about the stir there. And that makes me increasingly confident that something's happened to eliminate whatever German menace there may ever have been." "Exactly what Trupp was saying the other day," the Colonel commented. "Something's happened. You and I don't know what. You and I never do. Bonar Law and the rest of em wouldn't be working up a Civil War on this scale unless they were certain Germany was muzzled; and what's more the Government wouldn't let em. The politicians may be fools, but they aren't lunatics." A few evenings after this talk as the Colonel sat after supper in the loggia with his wife, overlooking the sea wandering white beneath the moon, he ruminated between puffs upon the political situation, domestic and international, with a growing sense of confidence at his heart. Indeed there was much to confirm his hopes.