"That is your point of view," Hebblethwaite reminded him. "I tell you frankly that I incline towards Busby's." "Then you'll eat your words," Wyatt asserted, "before many months are out. I, too, have been in Germany lately, although I was careful to go as a tourist, and I have picked up a little information. I tell you it isn't for nothing that Germany has a complete list of the whole of her rolling stock, the actual numbers in each compartment registered and reserved for the use of certain units of her troops. I tell you that from one end of the country to the other her state of military preparedness is amazing. She has but to press a button, and a million men have their rifles in their hands, their knapsacks on their backs, and each regiment knows exactly at which station and by what train to embark. She is making Zeppelins night and day, training her men till they drop with exhaustion. Krupp's works are guarded by double lines of sentries. There are secrets there which no one can penetrate. And all the time she is building ships feverishly. Look here--you know my cousin, Lady Emily Fakenham?" "Of course!" "Only yesterday," Wyatt continued impressively, "she showed me a letter--I read it, mind--from a cousin of Prince Hohenlowe. She met him at Monte Carlo this year, and they had a sort of flirtation. In the postscript he says: 'If you take my advice, don't go to Dinard this August. Don't be further away from home than you can help at all this summer.' What do you think that meant?" "It sounds queer," Hebblethwaite admitted.