Prone to assume strange, angular attitudes when speaking, the Foreign Secretary hung over and clutched at the dispatch-box before him, as though it literally contained that most malignant of all the swarm of Evils that issued from the Box of Pandora, as he told his hearers of the rejection of the German bribe and warned them of the imminence of a Declaration of War. Then, amidst increasing, deepening excitement, the Prime Minister read the appeal of the King of the Belgians, and told of Great Britain’s ultimatum to Germany.... No wonder those close-packed crowds of sturdy Britons waited under the blue glare of the arc-lamps to hear Big Ben bell the midnight hour. As the great voice boomed Twelve from the illuminated square of the dial amidst the striking of the countless clocks of London, a tremendous roar of cheers acclaimed the pipping of the egg of Fate and Destiny, echoed by other crowds in distant thoroughfares, spreading in waves to the unseen horizon, whose East was pregnant with the Kaiser’s Day. That Fourth of August; Eve of the Feast of British Oswald, King, soldier and Saint, whose Address to his Northumbrian warriors before the battle of Denisburn, fought against Pagan Cadwalla in 633, the Catholic Church enshrines in Her Chronicles: "_Let us all kneel and jointly beseech the true and living GOD ALMIGHTY in His Mercy to defend us from the doughty and fierce enemy. For He knoweth that we have undertaken a just War...._" "Whereupon," says the Venerable Bede, "all did as the King commanded. And advancing towards the enemy with the first dawn of day, they won the victory their Faith deserved." And before midnight of this pregnant Fourth of August, from the great Wireless Station of Eilvise in Hanover, Germany flung round the world this vital message to all her mercantile Marine: "War declared on England! Make as quickly as you can for a neutral port!" On the outbreak of War the British Navy cut the All German cables. One by one the German Colonial Wireless Stations were dismantled. When the great station at Kamina in Togoland fell, the only remaining link in the system was between the Fatherland and the United States. Dawn outlining the silken blinds, vied with the blue glimmer of the night-lamp as Margot wakened, to hear, in the hush that precedes the Brocken-hunt of Sloane Street motor-traffic, Franky’s low, urgent appeal: "_Kittums_! Kittums, best child!" "What on earth did you wake me for?" said a sleepy and distinctly cross voice. "Couldn’t help it! I simply had to tell you!" Franky began. The little hand touched the electric clock-button and on the ceiling wavered a gigantic dial of yellow brightness.