“Oh!” replied the policeman. “That’s over the water. You soon forget about it when you get back home. It would be funny, sir, if that there island were to put a stop to the war. We’d hardly know what to do with our young men.” Siebenhaar’s blood boiled. A great nation, with a tradition of freedom, could acquiesce in such arrest of its life, such wanton sacrifice of its youth! He visited the Lord High Chief and found him just out of his bed in a suit of blue silk pajamas. Breakfast was laid before him and he offered Siebenhaar coffee. It was refused. “I am come, sir, to tell you that the island will not be used to assist you. It will be used to stop the war.” “Stop the----?” “As I say.” “Come, come, sir. The war cannot be stopped until all parties to it agree to our terms of settlement. It is a matter of high politics, which it takes an expert to understand. We have the matter well in hand. The country was told at the beginning that it was to be a long war. It will be finished when our terms are agreed upon and not before.” “And those terms are----?” “They are known to my colleagues and myself. When the settlement is concluded they will be laid before the country.” “And have you, sir, during the last fifteen years ever risked your life on land or sea? Have you suffered in pocket or in health? Have you been deprived of even a luxury?” “For fifteen years I have been the hardest worked man in the country. I have practically lived in this office. When things were going badly with us I made speeches up and down the country.” “Asking young men to give their lives and thank God for the privilege of dying before they had tasted the full sweetness of life.” “It is their country’s life against theirs.” “You say so.” “The Fatters will make an end of us if they don’t.” “Have you made an end of the Fatters?” “No. But we will before we have done.” “Are the Fatter women all stricken with barrenness?” “Not that I know of.” “Then you cannot make an end of the race.” “We can smash their Empire.” “A word. Can you smash a word? You seem to me, sir, to talk and act as though a nation were an abstraction instead of a collection of human beings, bound together by language, manners, and religion.” “It is a matter of high politics.”