"Absolutely and entirely," Herr Selingman declared, with a new and ponderous gravity. "There is nothing the most warlike German desires more fervently than to keep the peace. We are strong only because we desire peace, peace under which our commerce may grow, and our wealth increase."
"Well, it seems to me, then," Norgate observed, "that you've gone to a great deal of expense and taken a great deal of trouble for nothing. I don't know much about these things, as I told you before, but there is no nation in the world who wants to attack Germany."
Herr Selingman laid his finger upon his nose.
"That may be," he said. "Yet there are many who look at us with envious eyes. I am a good German. I know what it is that we want. We want peace, and to gain peace we need strength, and to be strong we arm. That is everything. It will never be Germany who clenches her fist, who draws down the black clouds of war over Europe. It will never be Germany, I tell you. Why, a war would ruin half of us. What of my crockery? I sell it all in England. Believe me, young gentleman, war exists only in the brains of your sensational novelists. It does not come into the world of real purpose."
"Well, it's very interesting to hear you say so," Norgate admitted. "I wish I could wholly agree with you."
Herr Selingman caught him by the sleeve.
"You are just a little," he confided, "just a little suspicious, my young friend, you in your little island. Perhaps it is because you live upon an island. You do not expand. You have small thoughts. You are not great like we in Germany, not broad, not deep. But we will talk later of these things. I must tell you about our Kaiser."
Norgate opened his lips and closed them again.
"Presently," he muttered. "See you later on."
He strolled to his coupé, tried in vain to read, walked up and down the length of the train, smoked a cigarette, and returned to his compartment to find Herr Selingman immersed in the study of many documents.