He stirred the fire to a blaze and began once more to feed it with the papers from his private safe. I might have helped him; but this news of approaching peace seemed to relax all my muscles. For the first time in more than four years I could look beyond the work of the moment and see myself as an individual. When I was less tired, I could go back to the old life; and, for a man with a competence, life in England had been more than tolerable until the fourth of August, 1914. “Don’t let’s talk about the _next_ war,” I said. “Unless we can find a substitute . . .” “People talked like that after Waterloo,” Hornbeck murmured. “I expect they talked like that after the siege of Troy; but they always sowed their peace with the seeds of the next war.” The night air was chilling the room; and Hornbeck interrupted his task of destruction to shut the window. “Well, what kind of peace do you want now?,” he asked, with a smile half mocking, half wistful playing over his tired face. “This war followed inevitably on the war of ’70, which followed inevitably on the nationalist wars, which followed inevitably on Napoleon’s conquests. Will you divide the world now according to nationalities? I’m afraid you’ll have new wars in Poland, Alsace-Lorraine, Austria, Turkey; not to mention Egypt and India. People talk about a United States of the World; but, when you’ve been getting the last ounce out of national spirit for all these years, you won’t persuade white men to take their orders from an international committee of dagos.” I turned from the wall-map to the official estimates of casualties in all countries. “When people remember what a bloody business war is . . .” I began. “We had South Africa and Japan to warn _us_!” he interrupted. “The next generation . . . George, I promise you that, unless you get your new heaven and your new earth functioning at once, you’ll drift back to the only kind of life a nation knows. Fear and arrogance; insane hatred and colossal stupidity. Periodically the world will panic into war, which is the only final solution known to history.” . . . “The only one we’ve tried; and it’s a solution of nothing,” I answered. “My God, if I didn’t believe this was really a war to end war . . .” I paused as Hornbeck was called to the telephone. He listened for a moment, nodded to me and took down his coat and cap. Even he could work no longer; and, as I walked home alone, I tried to understand that the “war to end war” had itself ended. In four years I had forgotten how London looked before the lamps were shrouded and the hoardings placarded with patriotic appeals. Their purpose was accomplished; a uniform would soon be as rare as civilian clothes were now; the hospitals would empty; the blue coats and red ties of the convalescents would disappear.