as much use as rabbits. I don't believe that a single one of them
got any further than the kitchens."

Dorward nodded gloomily.

"I guess they weren't taking any chances up there," he remarked.
"There wasn't a secretary in the room. Carstairs was nearly thrown
out, and he had a permit to enter the Palace. The great staircase
was held with soldiers, and Dick swore that there were Maxims in the
corridors."

Bellamy sighed.

"We shall hear the roar of bigger guns before we are many months
older, Dorward," he declared.

The journalist glanced at his friend keenly. "You believe that?"

Bellamy shrugged his shoulders.

"Do you suppose that this meeting is for nothing?" he asked. "When
Austria, Germany and Russia stand whispering in a corner, can't you
believe it is across the North Sea that they point? Things have
been shaping that way for years, and the time is almost ripe."

"You English are too nervous to live, nowadays," Dorward declared
impatiently. "I'd just like to know what they said about America."

Bellamy smiled with faint but delicate irony.

"Without a doubt, the Prince will tell you," he said. "He can
scarcely do more to show his regard for your country. He is giving
you a special interview--you alone out of about two hundred
journalists. Very likely he will give you an exact account of
everything that transpired. First of all, he will assure you that
this meeting has been brought about in the interests of peace. He
will tell you that the welfare of your dear country is foremost in
the thoughts of his master. He will assure you--"

"Say, you're jealous, my friend," Dorward interrupted calmly. "I
wonder what you'd give me for my ten minutes alone with the
Chancellor, eh?"

"If he told me the truth," Bellamy asserted, "I'd give my life for
it. For the sort of stuff you're going to hear, I'd give nothing.
Can't you realize that for yourself, Dorward? You know the man--false
as Hell but with the tongue of a serpent. He will grasp your
hand; he will declare himself glad to speak through you to the great
Anglo-Saxon races--to England and to his dear friends the Americans.
He is only too pleased to have the opportunity of expressing himself
candidly and openly. Peace is to be the watchword of the future.
The white doves have hovered over the Palace. The rulers of the
earth have met that the crash of arms may be stilled and that this
terrible unrest which broods over Europe shall final