"Certainly," Norgate assented, stretching himself. "By-the-by, you had better look after your papers there, Herr Selingman. Just as I woke up I saw a small slip fluttering along the seat. You made a most infernal draught by opening that door, and I almost fancy it went out of the window." Herr Selingman's face became suddenly grave. He went through the papers one by one, and finally locked them up in his bag. "Nothing missing, I hope?" Norgate asked. Herr Selingman's face was troubled. "I am not sure," he said. "It is my belief that I had with me here a list of my agents in England. I cannot find it. In a sense it is unimportant, yet if a rival firm should obtain possession of it, there might be trouble." Norgate looked out into the night and smiled. "Considering that it is blowing half a hurricane and commencing to rain," he remarked, "the slip of paper which I saw blowing about will be of no use to any one when it is picked up." They called the attendant and ordered him to prepare the sleeping berths. Then they made their way down to the buffet car, and Herr Selingman ordered a bottle of wine. "We will drink," he proposed, "to our three countries. In our way we represent, I think, the industrial forces of the world--Belgium, England, and Germany. We are the three countries who stand for commerce and peace. We will drink prosperity to ourselves and to each other." Norgate threw off, with apparent effort, his sleepiness. "What you have said about our three countries is very true," he remarked. "Perhaps as you, Mr. Meyer, are a Belgian, and you, Mr. Selingman, know Belgium well and have connections with it, you can tell me one thing which has always puzzled me. Why is it that Belgium, which is, as you say, a commercial and peace-loving country, whose neutrality is absolutely guaranteed by three of the greatest Powers in Europe, should find it necessary to have spent such large sums upon fortifications?" "In which direction do you mean?" Selingman asked, his eyes narrowing a little as he looked across at Norgate. "The forts of Liege and Namur," Norgate replied, "and Antwerp. I know nothing more about it than I gathered from an article which I read not long ago in a magazine. I had always looked upon Belgium as being outside the pale of possible warfare, yet according to this article it seems to be bristling to the teeth with armaments." Herr Selingman cleared his throat. "I will tell you the reason," he said. "You have come to the right man to know. I am a civilian, but there are few things in connection with my country which I do not understand. Mr. Meyer here, who is a citizen of Brussels, will bear me out. It is the book of a clever, intelligent, but misguided German writer which has been responsible for Belgium's unrest--Bernhardi's _Germany and the Next War_--that and articles of a similar tenor which preceded it." "Never read any of them," Norgate remarked.