ork," said Cantagnac,
through his grating teeth, as though the admiration were extracted from
him. "I do not see how any army or any fort could resist such
instruments."

"No, monsieur, not one."

"Would not all the other nations unite against your country?"

"What would that matter, when, I repeat, the number of adversaries would
not affect the question?"

"What a dreadful thing! I beg your pardon, but I go to church and I have
had 'Love one another!' dinned into my ears. What is to become of that
precept, eh?"

"It is what I should diffuse by my cannon," returned Clemenceau.

"By scattering the limbs of thousands of men, ha, ha!" but his laugh
sounded very hollow, indeed.

"Not so; by destroying warfare," was the inventor's reply. "War is
impious, immoral and monstrous, and not the means employed in it. The
more terrible they are, the sooner will come the millennium. On the day
when men find that no human protection, no rank, no wealth, no
influential connections, nothing can shield them from destruction by
hundreds of thousands, not only on the battlefield, but in their houses,
within the highest fortified ramparts, they will no longer risk their
country, homes, families and bodies, for causes often insignificant or
dishonest. At present, all reflecting men who believe that the divine
law ought to rule the earth, should have but one thought and a single
aim: to learn the truth, speak it and impress it by all possible means
wherever it is not recognized. I am a man who has frittered away too
much of his time on personal tastes and emotions, and I vow that I shall
never let a day pass without meditating upon the destination whither all
the world should move, and I mean to trample over any obstacle that
rises before me. The time is one when men could carouse, amuse
themselves, doze and trifle--or keep in a petty clique. The real society
will be formed of those who toil and watch, believe and govern."

"I see, monsieur, that you cherish a hearty hatred for the enemies of
the student and the worker," said the ex-notary, not without an
inexplicable bitterness, "and that you seek the suppression of the
swordsman."

"You mistake--I hate nobody," loftily answered Clemenceau. "If I thought
that my country would use my discovery to wage an unjust war, I declare
that I should annihilate the invention. But whatever rulers may intend,
my country will never long carry on an unfair war and it is only to make
right prevai