Note: Images of the original pages are available through HathiTrust Digital Library. See https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433074864483 THE EVACUATION OF ENGLAND The Twist in the Gulf Stream by L. P. GRATACAP Author of “The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars,” “A Woman of the Ice Age” New York Brentano’S 1908 Copyright, 1908, by Brentano’s CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. IN WASHINGTON, APRIL, 1909 5 II. THE LECTURE 38 III. BALTIMORE, MAY 29, 1909 66 IV. GETTYSBURG, MAY 30, 1909 102 V. THE EVICTION OF SCOTLAND 131 VI. THE TERROR OF IT 170 VII. IN LONDON, FEBRUARY, 1910 195 VIII. THE EVACUATION 231 IX. THE SPECTACLE 274 X. ADDENDUM 298 THE EVACUATION OF ENGLAND CHAPTER I. IN WASHINGTON, APRIL, 1909. Alexander Leacraft was regarding with as much interest as his constitutional lassitude permitted, the progress of a distinctly audible altercation on Pennsylvania avenue, Washington, D. C. The disputants had not felt it necessary, under the relaxing influences of a premature spring, to interpose any screen of secrecy, such as a less exposed position, or subdued voices, between themselves and the news-mongering (and hungering, let it be added) proletariat of our nation’s capital. A small crowd, composed of the singular human compound always pervasive and never to be avoided in Washington, which, in that centre of political sensations, is made up of street loafers, accidental tourists, perambulating babies, “niggers,” and presumptive statesmen, enclosed this “argument”; and from his elevated station, within the front parlor of the McKinley, Mr. Leacraft was afforded a very excellent view of and an equally distinct hearing of the disagreement and its principals. The two disputants were themselves sufficiently contrasted in appearance to have allured the casual passer-by to observe their contrasted methods in debate. One--the taller--was a thin, angular man with unnaturally long arms, a peculiar swaying habit of body, an elongated visage, terminating in a short, stubby growth of whiskers, and a sharp, crackling kind of voice, with unmistakable nasal faults. He seemed to be a southern man modified by a few imitations of the northern type.