istance, I gained the advantage of
five minutes' conversation with them. They were very affable. The
gentleman told me his name was Jones, and that he came from Manchester,
but he did not seem to know what part of Manchester, or where Manchester
was. I asked him where he was going to, but he evidently did not know.
He said it depended. I asked him if he did not find an alpenstock a
clumsy thing to walk about with through a crowded town; he admitted that
occasionally it did get in the way. I asked him if he did not find a
veil interfere with his view of things; he explained that you only wore
it when the flies became troublesome. I enquired of the lady if she did
not find the wind blow cold; she said she had noticed it, especially at
the corners. I did not ask these questions one after another as I have
here put them down; I mixed them up with general conversation, and we
parted on good terms.

I have pondered much upon the apparition, and have come to a definite
opinion. A man I met later at Frankfort, and to whom I described the
pair, said he had seen them himself in Paris, three weeks after the
termination of the Fashoda incident; while a traveller for some English
steel works whom we met in Strassburg remembered having seen them in
Berlin during the excitement caused by the Transvaal question. My
conclusion is that they were actors out of work, hired to do this thing
in the interest of international peace. The French Foreign Office,
wishful to allay the anger of the Parisian mob clamouring for war with
England, secured this admirable couple and sent them round the town. You
cannot be amused at a thing, and at the same time want to kill it. The
French nation saw the English citizen and citizeness--no caricature, but
the living reality--and their indignation exploded in laughter. The
success of the stratagem prompted them later on to offer their services
to the German Government, with the beneficial results that we all know.

Our own Government might learn the lesson. It might be as well to keep
near Downing Street a few small, fat Frenchmen, to be sent round the
country when occasion called for it, shrugging their shoulders and eating
frog sandwiches; or a file of untidy, lank-haired Germans might be
retained, to walk about, smoking long pipes, saying "So." The public
would laugh and exclaim, "War with such? It would be too absurd."
Failing the Government, I recommend the scheme to the Peace Society.