"Small credit to him," declared Malherb. "Burgoyne? The man was better at making rubbishy pieces for the playhouse than leading an army." "But those matters that fell out after--they sum the difference--the fundamental differences of ideas between the respective countries, Mr. Malherb," said the sailor. "Simplicity--childish simplicity, if you like--is our keynote, and we shall never depart from it back into old-world pomp. When Burgoyne, clad in a magnificent uniform covered with gold lace, surrendered up his sword, he found the conqueror wearing an old blanket for a cloak and a cotton cap stuck over one ear. There was the type of monarchy triumphed over by a despised but an inspired race. Afterwards Congress, in a sudden fit of reckless generosity, presented General Stark with two ells of blue and one of yellow cloth to make him a conqueror's coat, and six shirts of Dutch linen to wear under it withal! But my father well remembered the general complaining when he received his nation's gift that the cambric for his cuffs was not provided!" "What argument do you reap from beggarly poverty, sir?" "Why, sir, who are you to flout it? The beggars won! The beggars had the genius on their side. Your country calls for millions on millions to grease the old, creaking wheels of its social and constitutional machinery before they will turn at all; America's unique simplicity only places a single sentinel at the President's door." "Our failure was an accident of men, not of system," declared Malherb. "Fortune favoured a wicked cause as not seldom happens. You had Washington--a man as great as a fallen angel; we--well, it is idle to name names to-day. But it may be permitted to allude to the Howes, who sacrificed to fraternal affection the vital trust imposed upon them. It is granted that we fought ill and taught you what to avoid; it is even allowed that the scholar became as skilled as the master. Your experience, courage and discipline are British; your treachery and red-skin morality are your own. However, the last word is not yet spoken. There are yet a great many Tories in America." "Of whom I am one," declared Cecil Stark. "Those who pretend to read the future," he continued, "see two great tendencies amongst us--one towards democracy, t'other towards aristocracy. The nation may become vulgar, or it may become noble; but it must become great. None can say more of our future than that by all laws of revealed religion and human history, it should be glorious so long as our aims are pure. To foretell that calls for no prophet." "What religion sanctions the revolt of a child from its parent? You were not of age. You had no right to think for yourselves." "The old British fallacy," answered Stark. "Freedom of thought can be denied to none. Deny all other freedom, if you will. But freedom of thought is an immortal fact."