“I?  I never thought of such a thing.”

“Well, then how did you happen to drop onto that idea in this curious fashion?  It’s just mind-reading, that’s what it is, though you may not know it.  Because I have got a private project that requires a Bank of England at its back.  How could you divine that?  What was the process?  This is interesting.”

“There wasn’t any process.  A thought like this happened to slip through my head by accident:  How much would make you or me comfortable?  A hundred thousand.  Yet you are expecting two or three of—­these inventions of yours to turn out some billions of money—­and you are wanting them to do that.  If you wanted ten millions, I could understand that—­it’s inside the human limits.  But billions!  That’s clear outside the limits.  There must be a definite project back of that somewhere.”

The earl’s interest and surprise augmented with every word, and when Hawkins finished, he said with strong admiration: 

“It’s wonderfully reasoned out, Washington, it certainly is.  It shows what I think is quite extraordinary penetration.  For you’ve hit it; you’ve driven the centre, you’ve plugged the bulls-eye of my dream.  Now I’ll tell you the whole thing, and you’ll understand it.  I don’t need to ask you to keep it to yourself, because you’ll see that the project will prosper all the better for being kept in the background till the right time.  Have you noticed how many pamphlets and books I’ve got lying around relating to Russia?”

“Yes, I think most anybody would notice that—­anybody who wasn’t dead.”

“Well, I’ve been posting myself a good while.  That’s a great and, splendid nation, and deserves to be set free.”  He paused, then added in a quite matter-of-fact way, “When I get this money I’m going to set it free.”

“Great guns!”

“Why, what makes you jump like that?”

“Dear me, when you are going to drop a remark under a man’s chair that is likely to blow him out through the roof, why don’t you put some expression, some force, some noise unto it that will prepare him?  You shouldn’t flip out such a gigantic thing as this in that colorless kind of a way.  You do jolt a person up, so.  Go on, now, I’m all right again.  Tell me all about it.  I’m all interest—­yes, and sympathy, too.”

“Well, I’ve looked the ground over, and concluded that the methods of the Russian patriots, while good enough considering the way the boys are hampered, are not the best; at least not the quickest.  They are trying to revolutionize Russia from within; that’s pretty slow, you know, and liable to interruption all the time, and is full of perils for the workers.  Do you know how Peter the Great started his army?  He didn’t start it on the family premises under the noses of the Strelitzes; no, he started it away off yonder, privately,—­only just one regiment, you know, and he built to that.  The first thing the Strelitzes knew, the regiment was an army, their position was turned, and they had to take a walk.  Just that little idea made the biggest and worst of all the despotisms the world has seen.  The same idea can unmake it.  I’m going to prove it.  I’m going to get out to one side and work my scheme the way Peter did.”