“Very glad to see you, gentlemen,” was the Prime Minister’s brisk welcome.  “Sorry I can’t talk French to you.  Politics, these last ten years, haven’t left us much time for the outside graces.”

Monsieur Pouilly at once took the floor.  He was a thin, dark man with a beautifully trimmed black beard, flashing black eyes, and thoughtful, delicate features.  He was attired in the frock coat and dark trousers of diplomatic usage, and he appeared to somewhat resent the brown tweed suit and soft collar of the man who was receiving him.

“Mr. Mervin Brown,” he began, “you will kindly look upon our visit as official.  We are envoys from Monsieur le President and the French Government.  General Dumesnil has accompanied me, in case our conversation should turn upon military matters here or at the War Office.”

The General saluted.  The Prime Minister bowed a little awkwardly.

“So far as I am concerned,” the latter declared, “I will be perfectly frank with you from the start.  I know nothing whatever about military affairs.  My job is to govern this country, to make the most of its resources, and to bring prosperity to its citizens from the English Channel to the North Sea.  We don’t need soldiers and never shall, that I can see.  I am firmly convinced that the days of wars are over.  The government of every country in the world is getting into the hands of the democracy, and the democracy don’t want war and never did.  If any of the more quarrelsome folk on the continent get scrapping, well, my conception of my duty is to keep out of it.”

Monsieur Pouilly restrained himself.  To judge from his appearance, however, it was not altogether an easy matter.

“You belong, sir,” he said, “to a type of statesman whose rise to power in this country some of us have watched with a certain amount of concern, for although it is not my mission here to-day to talk politics, I am yet bound to remind you that you do not stand alone.  The very League of Nations upon which you rely imposes certain obligations upon you, some actual, some understood.  It is to discuss the situation arising from your neglect to make the provisions called for in that agreement that I am here to-day.”

Mr. Mervin Brown glanced at some figures which his secretary had laid before him.

“You complain, I presume, of the reduction of our standing army?” he observed.

“We complain of that,” Monsieur Pouilly replied, “and we complain also of the gradually decreasing interest shown by your Government in matters of aeronautics, artillery, and naval construction.  We learnt our lesson in 1914.  If trouble should come again, our country would once more be the sufferer.  You would no doubt do everything that was expected of you, in time.  Before you were ready, however, France would be ruined.  You entered into certain obligations under the League of Nations.  My Government begs to call your attention to the fact that you are not fulfilling them.”