"No," said Cantor, "but I can conceive of circumstances which would compel you to think of it as foreign. I understand your government is irritated by certain British actions with regard to your mails and shipping. Might not something disagreeable grow out of that?" "It might. These are puzzling days, Mr. Cantor. I confess I am bewildered by them. Impossible events happen with startling ease, and inevitable consequences fail to follow amazingly. Yes, I can imagine trouble coming with Great Britain, but somehow it does seem unlikely as long as Germany lays a murder on every mail-bag England plays. You aren't especially apt to bother with a man who jostles you in a crowd if there is another man trying to hit you with an ax." Cantor half shut his eyes and peered into his glass. Presently he looked up to Potter and nodded. "I get your point of view," he said. "I wonder how many people share it." "I've given up guessing what the people think." "It wouldn't surprise me to see your public opinion veering to favor Germany." "Some of our public opinion does favor it. Our German-Americans and such like." "A good many of them--millions I understand." "Yes." "Perhaps capable of influencing a majority?" "I don't know," said Potter, and nodded his head, not exactly with satisfaction, but as a man does who fancies he has made a point in an argument. "German public opinion here seems to be organized," said Potter. "The German government is efficient. If it has felt the need of fostering your favorable opinion, I think we may say it has taken steps to foster it." Potter wondered just where Cantor stood in the matter, but the courteous air of the man, his manner of putting a question, were not those of a man holding to one opinion or the other, but of a seeker after information. He asked questions, but answered none, not even by the expression of his face. He had made no direct statement; had shown neither pleasure nor displeasure with what he had heard. Yet Potter judged him to be a man capable of strong opinions and of taking action in support of them. There was nothing neutral about the man. He was positive, but baffling. He was an individual who would play his cards on the merits of his own hand, Potter thought, and would carry his betting just as far as the value of his cards warranted. Until that point arrived he would not lay down his hand. Potter determined to see what a direct question would produce. "What do you think of the sinking of the _Lusitania_?" he asked, abruptly. Cantor regarded him for an instant with the air of a man who wishes to use care to express himself clearly, and then he replied with such a manner of clarity as made Potter chuckle inwardly. "The sinking of the _Lusitania_," he said, with the positiveness of a man stating an incontrovertible fact, "is a matter without precedent. It is my firm opinion that the German Admiralty considered carefully every effect which might derive from it before ordering the act."