He took down the volume, almost haphazard, for it was his luxurious custom to devote after dinner a digestive hour to haphazard reading; a bound volume of pamphlets, which had once entertained him with the _Times_ reprint of the Obituary of The Duke of Wellington. He sat down in his arm-chair, turned over some dreary pages, tried to interest himself in “What is it all About? or an Enquiry into the Statements of the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon that the Church of England Teaches Salvation by Baptism, instead of Salvation by the Blood of our Blessed Master Jesus Christ, and that Many of the Clergy are guilty of Dishonesty and Perjury, by the Rev. Joseph Bardsley, M.A.,” sadly shook his head, and, turning over more gloomy pages, came upon an oasis in the desert: “The Fight at Dame Europa’s School, showing how the German Boy thrashed the French Boy, and how the English Boy looked on.” He read the mordant sarcasm of eighteen hundred and seventy-one with great enjoyment, and had just finished it when Quong Ho, notebook under arm, entered the room. “Quong Ho,” said he, “I’ve just been reading a famous satirical pamphlet on the part which England played in the Franco-Prussian War. When you have time you might read it. The English is impeccable. You won’t find any ‘adjunctives’ in it. It lashes England for not having gone to the help of France in 1870.” “Why should one nation undertake another’s quarrel?” asked Quong Ho, with a curious flash in his eyes. “Why should China shed her blood for the sake, by way of illustration, of Denmark?” “There is an answer, Quong Ho,” replied Baltazar, “to your astute question. In ancient times China and Denmark were as far apart as Neptune and Mercury. But wireless telegraphy has brought them to each other’s frontiers. Nowadays nations act and react on one another in a very subtle way. You must read a little more of modern European History, for Europe is the nerve centre of a system of nervous telepathy which forms a network round the earth. Nothing can happen in Europe nowadays without its sensitive reaction in China. You must remember that, at every instant of your life, if you wish to model a new China. For the old China has gone. I loved it, as you know, Quong Ho. But it’s as dead as Assyria. Another struggle between France and Germany would implicate the civilized world. Great Britain would not look on as in 1870, but would be on the side of France, and Japan would be on the side of Great Britain, and China——” “Would throw her lot into the same scale as Japan,” said Quong Ho, demurely. “Let us hope it never will happen,” said Baltazar. “In the meantime there’s something of greater importance.” He rose, went to his writing chair by the long deal table. “Let us see. What is it to-night? Elliptic Functions, isn’t it?” And while John Baltazar, serene in his reading of political philosophy, was guiding Quong Ho through mazes of mathematical abstraction, German aircraft were dropping bombs about England.