Selwyn rose to his feet, and thrusting his hands in his pockets, strode up and down the room.  ‘What can I hope to do?’ he said.  ’Remove the scales from the eyes of the blind; recall to life the spirit of universal brotherhood; destroy ignorance instead of destroying life.’

‘Some platform!’ said Watson, making rings of tobacco-smoke.

‘Take yourself, for example,’ said Selwyn vehemently, pausing in his walk and pointing towards the younger man.  ’You are a man of international experience and university education.  On the surface you have the attributes of a man of thought.  You are one that the world has a right to expect will take the correct stand on great human questions.  Yet the moment the barriers are down and jingoism floods the earth you give up without a struggle and join the great mass of the world’s driftwood.’

‘H’m,’ mused Watson, ‘so that’s your tack, eh?’

‘I tell you, Doug, you have no right to fight in this war.’

‘Thanks.’

’You should have the courage to keep out of it.  Even assuming that Germany is wholly in the wrong and Britain completely in the right, can’t you see that when the Kaiser and his advisers said, “Let there be war,” you and I and the millions of men in every country who believe in justice and Christianity should have risen up and answered, “You shall not have war"?’

Watson rose to his feet, and crossing to the fireplace, flicked the ash from his cigar, and leaned lazily against the stone shelf.  ’You’re a member of the Royal Automobile Club, aren’t you?’ he drawled.

Selwyn nodded and resumed his nervous walk.

’Take my advice, Austin.  Every time you feel that kind of dope mounting to your head, trot across the road to the club and have a swim in their tank.  You’d be surprised how it would bring you down to earth.’

‘You talk like a child,’ said Selwyn angrily.

‘Well,’ retorted the other, ’that’s better than talking like an old woman.’

With an impatient movement of his shoulders the younger man left the fireplace, and walking over to the piano, picked up a Hawaiian ukulele which had been left there by Mrs. Jarvis.  Getting the pitch from the piano, while Selwyn continued his restless march up and down the room, he studiously occupied himself with tuning the instrument, then strummed a few chords with his fingers.

‘Sorry not to fit in with your peace-brother-peace stuff,’ said Watson amiably, strumming a recent rag-time melody with a certain amount of dexterity, ‘but I always played you for a real white man at college.’

‘Doug,’ said Selwyn, stopping his walk and sitting on the arm of a big easy-chair, ‘if there is a coward in this room, it’s you.’

The haunting music of the ukulele was the only response.

‘Here you are at Cambridge—­an American,’ went on Selwyn.  ’Just because the set you know enlists with an accompaniment of tub-thumping’——­