It was odd how, through it all, this man whose name was known to so few Englishmen had become the arbiter of the nation's destiny. He held the bulk of the wheat which could be shipped from the West if the men who loaded the ships were willing; with him lay that "Yes" or "No" which should unlock the gates and bid a starving population enter the granaries. Once in his younger days he had heard a preacher who took for his text the words, "Sell that thou hast," and he remembered how that this man had declared the need of an all-embracing sacrifice once in the course of every life. The words haunted him, and could not be stilled. He had become as a King or Emperor of old time who could make war or end it by a word. Irony reminded him that he was an apostle of war, and that a sentiment which would deride it had no place in his creed. Why, and for whom, should he beggar himself to serve this people? His financial empire would come down with a crash if he surrendered now--he believed that he would never surrender, and yet he sent a compromising cable to America that day. This was just before Trevelle and he returned to London through a country which seemed to have no other thoughts than the pleasures of the frost. Everywhere the villages kept carnival upon the ice with merriment and music and the pageantry of snows. To Faber this seemed a wonderful trait in the national character, and not to be met by Trevelle's cheery reminiscence of the gladiatorial salute. These people had not saluted the frost because they believed that they were about to die, but because they thought that the national intellect would enable them to live. It had been the same during the Boer War and far back during the Crimea. Beneath the veil of tribulation lay the enduring faith that the nation would emerge, purified by the ordeal and greater for the knowledge of its own strength. "You see yourselves worrying through, and that's all you care about," he said, as the morning train carried them to London, and the daily papers were strewn about him like the monstrous leaves of an unhealthy plant: "the skin of this nation is the thickest on the globe, and perhaps its most wonderful asset. When you do get into a panic, you show it chiefly in the smoking-room or over the dinner-table. This time you've the biggest chunk to chew I can remember, and yet you are only beginning to see how big it is. The mob is teaching you something, and you'll learn more." He took up a journal from the seat, and passing it over to Trevelle, indicated some immense headlines. "See, here! the crowd has burned down your Temple, and is asking for another to keep 'em warm. That's British right through, I guess, and something to go on with. It's just what a man should expect when he turns philanthropist on his own account. You give them what they want, and they are mad because they want it. It's a pretty story, and you should read it. It will certainly interest you."