"They are saleable."
He looked keenly at me for some seconds. "Do you see that far, or do you only not see how it could be used as a weapon? That's it, eh! Well, I'll tell you. There's England spending more'n ten million dollars a day in the war. Suppose I go to Lord Kitchener. He's a practical, quick man—in half an hour he sees what I can do. 'What will you give,' I ask him, 'to have the Crown Prince and the rest of them Prussians blown clear away?' 'What is your price?' he inquires. 'Ten million pounds would be cheap,' I reply. 'Take five,' he says, 'we are not made of money.' 'Well, seeing it's you,' I tell him."
"It is a considerable discount, Adam. But then you are a British subject."
"Yes—kind of. But the conversation was imaginary. Discount or no discount, I feel no special call to blow away whole armies of Germans. If I could set the Odistor on the Kaiser, and the Crown Prince, and a dozen or so more of the Prussian gang, I'd do it, of course. But how could I find just where they were? Blowing away whole armies of men don't seem right to me."
"But you needn't do that yourself. Sell your secret outright to the British Government."
Adam stared as one truly astonished.
"Now what you think you're talking about?" he remonstrated. "Can't you see farther than that? Suppose I sell the secret to Kitchener. Suppose he clears out all the Germans with it. What next? Why, Ireland! Kitchener is a Jingo Imperialist, which I never was and never will be. I've heard of Jingoes saying time and again that England's interests would be suited if Ireland was ten feet under water. Or suppose he only blows the Irish out of Connaught, just to show the others they'd better cut out the Sinn Finn. What then? First place, I like the Irish. My wife's Irish. Next, consider all the world. Suppose England has got the irresistible weapon. There's no opposing it. Suppose France was to try, some time after this war is over. Away go her cities, farms, vineyards, people, higher than Gilroy's kite. What next? All the rest of the world then know they must do what the English say—Germans, Italians, Russians, Yankees, Canadians. Now I'm a cosmopolitan, I am. All kind of folk look good to me."
"But England ruling the world means universal peace," I said enthusiastically. "Free trade, equal rights, all the grand altruistic English ideals established forever and ever! Adam, let England have it! You'll be remembered as the greatest benefactor of humanity. A Bemis statue in Trafalgar Square, London! Sure! Think of that glory, Adam."
"For putting the English on top," he replied dryly. "I can't seem to want to. Not but what the English are all right. But my kind of Maritime Province Canadians are considerably more American than English, though they never rightly know it till they've lived here and in the old country. We're at home with Yankee ways and Yankee notions. In England we're only colonials. Not but what the war may change that a bit."
"Take your secret to Washington then. President Wilson will see that you get all that you can reasonably ask for it."