to her relatives across the North Sea, begging for a deeper sympathy, begging for a larger understanding.  (Applause from the audience, murmurs of dissent from the platform.) And as to those military preparations of which they had heard so much (with a severe glance at Captain Bartram), let them glance for one moment at the frontiers of Germany, let them realise that eastwards Germany was being continually pressed by an ancient and historic foe of enormous strength.  He would not waste their time telling them of the political difficulties which Germany had had to face during the last generation.  He would simply tell them this great truth,—­the foe for whom Germany was obliged to make these great military preparations was Russia.  If ever they were used it would be against Russia, and at Russia’s instigation.—­In his humble way he was striving for the betterment of relations between the dearly beloved country of his birth and the equally beloved country of his adoption.  Such meetings as these, instituted, as it seemed to him, for the propagation of unfair and unjustified suspicions, were one of the greatest difficulties in his way.  He could not for a moment doubt that these gentlemen upon the platform were patriots.  They would prove it more profitably, both to themselves and their country, if they abandoned their present prejudiced and harmful campaign and became patrons of his Society.

Seaman’s little bow to the chairman was good-humoured, tolerant, a little wistful.  The Duke’s few words, prefaced by an indignant protest against the intrusion of a German propagandist into an English patriotic meeting, did nothing to undo the effect produced by this undesired stranger.  When the meeting broke up, it was doubtful whether a single adherent had been gained to the cause of National Service.  The Duke went home full of wrath, and Seaman chuckled with genuine merriment as he stepped into the taxi which Dominey had secured, at the corner of the street.

“I promised you entertainment,” he observed.  “Confess that I have kept my word.”

Dominey smiled enigmatically.  “You certainly succeeded in making fools of a number of respectable and well-meaning men.”

“The miracle of it extends further,” Seaman agreed.  “To-night, in its small way, is a supreme example of the transcendental follies of democracy.  England is being slowly choked and strangled with too much liberty.  She is like a child being overfed with jam.  Imagine, in our dear country, an Englishman being allowed to mount the platform and spout, undisturbed, English propaganda in deadly opposition to German interests.  The so-called liberty of the Englishman is like the cuckoo in his political nest.  Countries must be governed.  They cannot govern themselves.  The time of war will prove all that.”

“Yet in any great crisis of a nation’s history,” Dominey queried, “surely there is safety in a multitude of counsellors?”