And then Mr. Jessop turned from this surprising theme to something that seemed nearer still to his heart. "Well, and, Cousin Nellie, here's a bit of good news. I guess that bomb-dropper of mine is a cinch. Your authorities over here are taking it up all right. They're going to use it all right!" "Oh, are they, Hiram?" said my young mistress in the indulgent tone of a grown-up person discussing its toys with some child. She always adopts this tone towards her cousin's invention. "And what do they think they're goin' to use it for, eh?" The young American looked round the table at each of the faces turned towards him. Then, in a detached tone, he made the announcement of that which was to make all the difference in the world to all of us. "I guess they'll use it--in this coming war!" Well, of course we'd seen "rumours of wars" in the day-old papers that had reached us in our wet Welsh valley. But a houseful of women recks little of newspaper news--or did reck little. It all seemed as far away, as little to do with us as, say, the report of some railway accident in Northern China! Now the young inventor's simple words brought it home to us! CHAPTER XXXIV THE FORTUNES OF WAR WAR--European war was at our very doors, and it seemed more than likely that England was going to join in, Mr. Jessop said. He went on, quite quietly, to inform us that it would find him ready, he guessed. He'd sent in his application early to the Royal Flying Corps, and he guessed that next time we saw him he'd be an Army aviator all right, in training for using his own bomb-dropper---- Here his young cousin dropped her soup-spoon with a clatter. "What?" cried Miss Million sharply. "You? If there is any war, shall you start fighting the Germans?" "I should say so!" smiled Mr. Hiram P. Jessop. "Why, yes!" "But you're American! Why ever on earth should you fight?" demanded Miss Million rather shrilly. "Nothing to do with you! You aren't English; you aren't Belgium! You belong to a--what's it?--a neutral nation!" "I guess I'm not going to let that stand in my way any," said Mr. Hiram P. Jessop, "if there's a chance of getting in at those hounds!" And I saw a curious change come over my mistress's small, bonny face as she regarded this man who--under no obligation to fight--felt he could not merely look on at a struggle between Right and Might. It was not the sentimental, girlish adoration that she had turned upon her first fancy, the Honourable Jim. It was the look of a real woman upon the man who pleases her. This was not the only quick change which the war made. For instance, who would have thought that those German Jews, the Rattenheimers, would ever have had to be interned in a camp in the middle of England, away from all their friends and all their jewel-collecting pursuits?