Comfortable Mrs. Jackman smilingly agreed. Without doubt that was the proposition. The flower of the world cut off by the war. . . . Oh! it staggered imagination to speculate on the number of bright young lives sacrificed! There was So-and-So, and Somebody Else’s son. Too tragic! The talk turned at once to the terrible intimacy of the war. Baltazar listened and learned many things. When the men were left alone, Baltazar learned more things about the war; the blunders, the half-heartednesses, the mysterious influences that petrified action. The soldier spoke of the fierce fight of a devoted little set of enthusiasts for an adequate supply of machine guns; the judge of hidden German ramifications against which he, as a mere administrator of written law, was powerless; the Conservative member of Parliament—his revelations made every particular hair of Baltazar’s brown thatch stand on end. Jackman talked of labour troubles, mentioned a recent case in which thousands of men making essential munitions of war had downed tools because a drunken pacifist, a workman, had been dismissed from a factory. Baltazar, only a month awakened to the fact of war, held the same bewildered view of strikes as had nearly driven him forth at midnight from Pillivant’s house. He burst out: “Why don’t they take the traitors and blow them from the cannon’s mouth?” The Member of Parliament laughed aloud: “There’s nothing like a fresh mind on things.” “Well, why don’t they?” “Don’t you think,” said the judge, “that such a course might tend to dishearten the working classes?” “It wouldn’t dishearten the Army,” declared the literal-minded Colonel. “The men would be all for it. If any fellows tried to go on strike in the Army they’d be shot on sight.” He was the only one of the company who advocated violent measures. The others seemed to regard strikes as phenomena of nature impeding the war like artillery-arresting mud, or as inevitable accidents like explosions in powder factories. Baltazar went away full of undigested knowledge. On his return from Godalming he dined with Weatherley, a bachelor, and a small gathering of fellow publicists. Here the conversation ran on more intellectual lines. The war was considered from the international standpoint, discussions turned on the subject-races of Austria, the inner history of the Roumanian campaign, the sinister situation in Greece, the failure of Allied diplomacy all through Eastern Europe. Baltazar listened eagerly to the good keen talk, and went back to his hotel braced and exhilarated. Even if they had all been talking through their hats, it would not matter. Premises granted, the logic of it all had been faultless, an intellectual joy. And they had not been talking through their hats. They were men who knew, men who had access to vital information apparently despised by the Foreign Office.