Faber seemed very much amused. He had expected this request from one or the other, but he recognised now that Sir Jules had been too shrewd to make it. Why, the very essence of his scheme was an assault upon American enterprise. It required this undaunted hustler to put the thing in plain terms--he liked Trevelle none the less for his effrontery. "I'll think of it all right," he said, still smiling; "perhaps I can see myself upon an American platform telling my fellow countrymen that the only way to keep Europeans from cutting each other's throats is to tax our goods another twenty per cent. That's the pith of Sir Jules's proposal. Free trade in Europe as a federated state--no more internecine rivalry. All brothers, except when the United States are on hand. You save your war bills because you fight for commercial reasons nowadays, and there won't be any commercial rivalries there. Well, I don't think it would do on my side, great as it is here. Make a federated state of Europe, if you like, but my countrymen would sooner federate Christ and His disciples. That's an honest truth, sir. I do believe my country is averse to war, because Almighty God has taught her to be so. I am thankful that it should be so, and yet I don't put human nature on too high a pedestal, and I believe America would fight to-morrow if a slap in her face rang loud enough. That's why I go on making guns for a living. I don't want to see men shot any more than any other man; but I do hold that the fighting instinct is deep down in the heart of every man, and that you will require some centuries yet to root it out. My gospel's there in so many words--I'm too old to alter it, and some of you will say I make too much money out of it." Trevelle expected nothing less, but he still persisted. "What then of the others--of Carnegie and the arbitration movement, and all that? Do you turn your back on them also?" "I never turn my back on brains wherever I find them. These earnest men, some of them men of genius, are educating the people of the whole world. I wish them God-speed! They are as truly defending their country as the man who holds a rifle. Their enemy is the brute beast, born in us from the beginning. They have to cast out devils--there's one in every man's story, but the best of us keep him under. It's just because there are others that men like myself are necessary. We bring brains into the argument--no country was yet saved without them, or ever will be." "Which is as much as to say that you do your work in your own way. America first in your mind all the time." "All the time, sir, except when I go to England, as now, to do what I can for those who may have need of me." "Privately, of course, Mr. Faber----" "Both privately and publicly, Mr. Trevelle, if the occasion should arise." "Ah," said Trevelle, "you are thinking what might happen if this frost should bring a panic." "I am thinking of nothing else, sir." II