When that plan was fully perfected I was to take it to my own King and ask for his consent to it. I knew his Majesty was as genuinely desirous for peace as the Czar, and I really foresaw no difficulty in being able to persuade him to sanction the scheme which I had drawn up. It is quite unnecessary to go into its full details here, but perhaps I had better give you a glimpse of the outline. Briefly, England was to make use of the _entente cordiale_ to compel France, by means of an ultimatum which would expire at the end of twenty-four hours, to consent to stand in with Great Britain and Russia in a demand that Germany's military force should be whittled down to the limits of the Swiss Militia. It was also to be stipulated that Germany's naval programme should always be one-half of the combined programmes of Great Britain, Russia, and France. Thanks to the treaty with Great Britain made some years ago with the Scandinavian States, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, and Spain and Italy, Germany would have been speedily isolated. She would have awakened one morning to find herself absolutely friendless, except, perhaps, for Austria. It would have been doubtful, too, whether even Austria would have remained faithful to her pushful friend when she saw the whole of Europe allied against the Fatherland. It was certainly a daring scheme, but one which, I think, must have met with instantaneous success. Every aspect of it had been considered, and even the contingency provided for by the Czar and myself. Naturally it was impossible to carry the details of so complicated a piece of business in one's head. I was half-afraid to commit them to writing myself, and so the Czar suggested that he should, with his own hand, draw up the lines of the agreement which we proposed to foist on Europe. I brought a copy of the document, made by the Czar himself, back to this country, and for three years I waited impatiently for an opportunity to present the scheme to his Majesty, and, if possible, persuade him to put it into operation. Those were three years of terrible anxiety. I carried the papers with me both day and night. A hundred times a day I would clap my hands to my breast-pocket to see if they were safe, and a score of times I would start up in my bed at night feverishly to ascertain if I still had them in my possession. But, in spite of all my care, I lost them. I kept the papers in a thin morocco-leather case, which bore the Imperial arms of Russia. One day I was looking through them in my room in Downing Street when I was suddenly informed that I was wanted at the telephone. Unfortunately, at that time I had no extension to my room. I need not particularise as to from whom the telephone message came. Suffice it to say that it was a summons which I could not disregard. I hastily gathered the papers together and, as I thought, thrust them into the breast-pocket of my coat.