Sir Jules Achon was a man of infinite patience and superb tenacity. Few but his intimate friends knew much about him. He had amassed a great fortune as a shipbroker, and now with advancing years, he devoted the bulk of that fortune to this tremendous project of European Federation. Yet it was all done without any claptrap whatever. The newspapers had hardly heard of it. There was no writer of eminence to take it up. Sir Jules worked in great places, but he worked silently. Already his scheme had the approval of kings and emperors. He had gone to St. Petersburg with a recommendation to the English Ambassador which opened all doors. But for a dramatic accident of destiny, the Tsar would have been his first patron. Three ministers knew his scheme, and two of them were warm supporters of such a transcendent project. The third saw in it a danger to the diplomatists, which self interest could not tolerate. "This will make an end of us," he had said. Sir Jules agreed that it was so. That very night Ivolsky obtained an audience of the Emperor, and besought him to withdraw his patronage. The others were too late by a few hours, and who shall say how far that accident of time and space has affected the immediate destinies of Europe? For the common peace projects, beating of pacific drums and waving of fraternal flags, Sir Jules cared not at all. He believed that international peace could come only upon a basis of common European interests. His scheme would have established free trade between the kingdoms. Wars arise chiefly from commercial disputes; commercial disputes are the first fruits of tariffs. Let the commercial incentive be wanting and disarmament may begin. A gradual process needed many years for full attainment--but it could begin to-morrow if the conditions were fulfilled. He talked very little of all this to those with him on the yacht. It was, in effect, a young people's party and a merry one at that. Dr. Joe Burrall had come from Putney, a braw man of thirty, who had rowed for Cambridge. Douglas Renshaw, a gunner whose occupation had gone, came because he was asked, and was asked because he was sure to come. He had taken to the Stock Exchange recently as a wire-haired terrier to the gorse, and Sir Jules had put a small fortune into his pocket. He knew a little geology, and declared his intention of studying Slav. So far the only word he had picked up was "hijar," and he was not very sure to what tongue it belonged, though he used it frequently as an expression of joy.