Phil shifted uneasily. "No," he replied. "I expect him pretty soon, though." He drained the glass the boy had filled. "You've been tremendously kind, Doctor," he went on hurriedly, "to lend me so much, without the least bit of security--" "Pshaw!" said Bersonin. "Why shouldn't I?" He put his hand on the other's shoulder with a friendly gesture. "I only wish money could give me as much pleasure as it does you, my boy." Two men had seated themselves in the next room. Through the open door came fragments of conversation, the gurgle of poured liquid and the bubbling hiss of Hirano mineral water. Bersonin lowered his voice: "Youth! What a great thing it is! Red-blood and imagination and zest to enjoy. All it needs is the wherewithal to gild its pleasures. After a time age catches us, and what are luxuries then? Only things to make tiresomeness a little less irksome!" Phil moved his glass on the table top in sullen circles. "But suppose one hasn't the 'wherewithal' you talk of? What's the fun without money, even when you're young? I've never been able to discover it!" "Find the money," said Bersonin. "I wish some one would tell me how!" Bersonin's head turned toward the door. He sat suddenly rigid. It came to Phil that he was listening intently to the talk between the two men in the next room. "I needn't point out"--it was a measured voice, cold and incisive and deliberate--"that when the American fleet came, two years ago, conditions were quite different. The cruise was a national _tour de force_; the visit to Japan was incidental. Besides, there was really no feeling then between the two nations--that was all a creation of the yellow press. But the coming of this European Squadron to-day is a different thing. It is a season of general sensitiveness and distrust, and when the ships belong to a nation between which and Japan there is real and serious diplomatic tension--well, in my opinion the time is, at best, inopportune." "Perhaps"--a younger voice was speaking now, less certain, less poised and a little hesitant--"perhaps the very danger makes for caution. People are particularly careful with matches when there's a lot of powder about." "True, so far as intention goes. But there is the possibility of some _contre-temps_. You remember the case of the _Ajax_ in the Eighties. It was blown up in a friendly harbor--clearly enough by accident, at least so far as the other nation was concerned. But it was during a time of strain and hot blood, and you know how narrowly a great clash was averted. If war had followed, regiments would have marched across the frontier, shouting: 'Remember the _Ajax_!' As it was, there was a panic in three bourses. Solid securities fell to the lowest point in their history. The yellow press pounded down the market, and a few speculators on the short side made gigantic fortunes."