"And you are sure--sure we can win?" the premier asked with a long, tense look at Westerling, who was steady under the scrutiny. "Absolutely!" he answered. "Five millions against three! It's mathematics, or our courage and skill are not equal to theirs Absolutely! We have the power, why not use it? We do not live in a dream age!" The premier sank deeper in his chair. He was silent, thinking. He who had carried off so many great coups with rare ease was on the threshold of one that made them all seem petty. He had heard random talk that some of the officers of the staff considered Westerling to be lath painted to look like steel. There was a reported remark by Turcas, his assistant, implying that the ability to achieve a position did not mean the ability to fill it. Jealousy, no doubt; the jealousy of rivals! The premier himself was used to having members of his own cabinet ever on the watch for the vulnerable spot in his back, which he had never allowed them to find. Yet, there was the case of Louis Napoleon. He had the ability to achieve a position; he had been the lath painted to look like steel. He had all the externals which the layman associates with victory until he went to the supreme test, which ripped him into slivers of rotten wood. The little Napoleon had been one of the premier's favorite bugaboo examples of stage realism tried out in real life. But it was ridiculous to compare him with the stalwart figure sitting across the table, who had spoken the language of materialism without illusion. Westerling's ambition on edge communicated itself to the premier, whose soft hands, long since divorced from any labor except official hand-shaking and the exercise of authority, were bending the paper-knife with unconscious vigor. "All the achievements of power form only a dull background for victory in war to a people's imagination!" he exclaimed. "Your name and mine to symbolize an age! What power for us! What power for the nation!" From a sudden, unwitting exertion of his strength the knife which had been the recipient of his emotions snapped in two. Rather carefully he laid the pieces on the table before he rose and turned to Westerling, his decision made. "If the people respond with the war fever, then it is war!" he said. "I take you at your word that you will win!" Westerling's chair creaked with the tense drawing of his muscles in the impulse of delight. He had gained the great purpose; but there was another and vital one on his programme. "A condition!" he announced. "From the moment war begins the army is master of all intelligence, all communication, all resources. Everything we require goes into the crucible!" "And the press--the mischievous, greedy, but very useful press?" asked the premier. "It also shall serve; also obey. No lists of killed and wounded shall be given out until I am ready. The public must know nothing except what I choose to tell. I act for the people and the nation."