observation, we cannot stop it, and it would not even be worth while to try.  As regards matters of military and naval importance, there was a special branch, he assured me, for looking after these, and it was a branch of the Service which was remarkably well-served and remarkably successful.  Having said this, he folded the list up and returned it to me, rang the bell, gave me a frozen hand to shake, a mumbled promise about another appointment as soon as there should be a vacancy, and that was the end of it.”

“About that other appointment,” Mr. Hebblethwaite began, with some animation—­

“Damn the other appointment!” Norgate interrupted testily.  “I didn’t come here to cadge, Hebblethwaite.  I am never likely to make use of my friends in that way.  I came for a bigger thing.  I came to try and make you see a danger, the reality of which I have just begun to appreciate myself for the first time in my life.”

Mr. Hebblethwaite’s manner slowly changed.  He pulled down his waistcoat, finished off a glass of wine, and leaned forward.

“Norgate,” he said, “I am sorry that this is the frame of mind in which you have come to me.  I tell you frankly that you couldn’t have appealed to a man in the Cabinet less in sympathy with your fears than I myself.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” Norgate replied grimly, “but go on.”

“Before I entered the Cabinet,” Mr. Hebblethwaite continued, “our relations with Foreign Powers were just the myth to me that they are to most people who read the Morning Post one day and the Daily Mail the next.  However, I made the best part of half a million in business through knowing the top and the bottom and every corner of my job, and I started in to do the same when I began to have a share in the government of the country.  The entente with France is all right in its way, but I came to the conclusion that the greatest and broadest stroke of diplomacy possible to Englishmen to-day was to cultivate more benevolent and more confidential relations with Germany.  That same feeling has been spreading through the Cabinet during the last two years.  I am ready to take my share of the blame or praise, whichever in the future shall be allotted to the inspirer of that idea.  It is our hope that when the present Government goes out of office, one of its chief claims to public approval and to historical praise will be the improvement of our relations with Germany.  We certainly do not wish to disturb the growing confidence which exists between the two countries by any maladroit or unnecessary investigations.  We believe, in short, that Germany’s attitude towards us is friendly, and we intend to treat her in the same spirit.”

“Tell me,” Norgate asked, “is that the reason why every scheme for the expansion of the army has been shelved?  Is that the reason for all the troubles with the Army Council?”