"When you men are through scrambling over that paper," he said, quietly, "I'll look at it myself." He did not stretch out his hand for the paper, did not seem to suggest that it be given to him, but simply stated a fact. Potter came near to smiling at the alacrity with which Senator and business man abandoned the news sheet and pressed it upon his father. The Senator was a big man in Washington and in Michigan, Potter knew. The stranger looked like a man of importance, yet Fabius Waite dominated them, made their personalities colorless by the simple fact of his presence. He merely sat there--and they were dwarfs beside him. "The people," said the Senator, "there'll be no holding them back. They'll sweep us into war--as they did with Spain." "I heard there were munitions shipped on the _Lusitania_," said the stranger. Fabius Waite paid not the minutest attention to them, but read calmly, appraisingly, from beginning to end what the paper told of the sinking of the _Lusitania_. When he was done he folded the paper neatly and laid it on his desk. "There were munitions," said the Senator, "and people were warned by advertisements in the paper to keep off that boat." "What's the difference?" Potter demanded. "Are we going to let them murder our citizens like this--and put up such an excuse as that?" "Citizens had no business on the boat," said the stranger. "They brought it on themselves." "There's _got_ to be war," said Potter, his eyes traveling uncertainly from Senator to business man--to his father, where they remained. "There's no other way. What else can be done about such a thing?" "For one thing," said Fabius Waite, coolly, "we can stop jabbering and think about it.... You especially, Potter. If you must wag your tongue, go back to the Pontchartrain bar and wag it for the benefit of the gang of loafers you train with.... Senator, what suggests itself to you?" "I must get to Washington. The Senate doesn't want war, I can vouch for that.... But the people.... Perhaps the President can hold them." "I gather from your words that he'll be willing to try?" "He's the last man in the country to want war.... There'll be no war. Those German dunder-heads! Do they want to pull the whole world down about their ears?" "They're fools," said the stranger. "We won't argue about their wisdom. Whether they were wise or foolish, they seem to have sunk the _Lusitania_." Fabius Waite paused. "And when all's said and done it won't be the Senate nor the President nor business which determines what we will do about it. It's the people who will make up their minds. Don't lose sight of that." "Public opinion can be molded." "For a while and to an extent.... I believe this thing can be handled so that nothing will come of it. It will take careful handling. You agree with me, do you not, Senator, that neither the people nor the business of the Middle West want war?" "Certainly I do."