as to grant this private audience and to permit the royal countenance to shine upon a manifest impossibility. It was notable that the Emperor of Germany, in spite of his warm friendship for Fessenden, had drawn his chair close to his host’s, and for the moment was in fuller sympathy with him; an unconscious manifestation of that _esprit de corps_ which exists among great rulers, no matter what their differences. Fessenden felt this but did not resent it; but he also felt that it left him practically alone, his father’s faculties being necessarily bent to introspection; but the isolation merely put him on his mettle, and he had fought too many battles single-handed to feel any faintness of spirit. Even he did not compare favorably in freshness with the two Emperors, for he had known too many anxious hours in the past three weeks, too many sleepless nights; but his temper was now cast in iron. “Your general, as well as the Prussian generals who have witnessed the experiments, are satisfied that failure is impossible,” he said, having finished the description of the inventions, which, like all great inventions, were simple enough. “It will be the first time in the history of the world that a war will have commenced with no uncertainty whatever as to the issue.” The Austrian Emperor answered with a German proverb, the equivalent of “There’s many a slip ’twixt cup and lip.” “We include no bunglers in our calculations, sir,” said Fessenden dryly. “Although every precaution will be taken against their admittance in the first place.”