an odd, pertinaceous
business it seems to have been. First one bomb, then another; then
finally the man with the pistol. While we were strolling about the rose
garden. It's like something out of 'The Prisoner of Zenda.'"

"Please," said Herr Heinrich.

Mr. Britling assumed an attentive expression.

"Will not this generally affect European politics?"

"I don't know. Perhaps it will."

"It says in the paper that Serbia has sent those bombs to Sarajevo."

"It's like another world," said Mr. Britling, over his paper.
"Assassination as a political method. Can you imagine anything of the
sort happening nowadays west of the Adriatic? Imagine some one
assassinating the American Vice-President, and the bombs being at once
ascribed to the arsenal at Toronto!... We take our politics more sadly
in the West.... Won't you have another egg, Direck?"

"Please! Might this not lead to a war?"

"I don't think so. Austria may threaten Serbia, but she doesn't want to
provoke a conflict with Russia. It would be going too near the powder
magazine. But it's all an extraordinary business."

"But if she did?" Herr Heinrich persisted.

"She won't.... Some years ago I used to believe in the inevitable
European war," Mr. Britling explained to Mr. Direck, "but it's been
threatened so long that at last I've lost all belief in it. The Powers
wrangle and threaten. They're far too cautious and civilised to let the
guns go off. If there was going to be a war it would have happened two
years ago when the Balkan League fell upon Turkey. Or when Bulgaria
attacked Serbia...."

Herr Heinrich reflected, and received these conclusions with an
expression of respectful edification.

"I am naturally anxious," he said, "because I am taking tickets for my
holidays at an Esperanto Conference at Boulogne."

Section 7

"There is only one way to master such a thing as driving an automobile,"
said Mr. Britling outside his front door, as he took his place in the
driver's seat, "and that is to resolve that from the first you will take
no risks. Be slow if you like. Stop and think when you are in doubt. But
do nothing rashly, permit no mistakes."

It seemed to Mr. Direck as he took his seat beside his host that this
was admirable doctrine.

They started out of the gates with an extreme deliberation. Indeed twice
they stopped dead in the act of turning into the road, and the engine
had to be restarted.

"You will laugh at me," said Mr. Britling; "but