"Millions of these pictures, with Japanese and Malayan text, are being circulated in the Philippines," said Harryman positively.
"Under our eyes?" asked a lieutenant naïvely.
"Under our eyes," replied Harryman, smiling, "our eyes which carelessly overlook such things."
Colonel Webster rose and offered Harryman his hand. "I have misjudged you," he said heartily. "I belong to your party from now on."
"It isn't a question of party," answered Harryman warmly, "or rather there will soon be only the one party."
"Do you think," asked Colonel McCabe, "that the supposed Japanese plan of attack on the Philippines, published at the beginning of the year in the North China Daily News, was authentic?"
"That question cannot be answered unless you know who gave the document to the Shanghai paper, and what object he had in doing so," replied Harryman.
"How do you mean?"
"Well," continued Harryman, "only two possibilities can exist: the document was either genuine or false. If genuine, then it was an indiscretion on the part of a Japanese who betrayed his country to an English paper—an English paper which no sooner gets possession of this important document than it immediately proceeds to publish its contents, thereby getting its ally into a nice pickle. You will at once observe here three improbabilities: treason, indiscretion, and, finally, England in the act of tripping her ally. These actions would be incompatible, in the first place, with the almost hysterical sense of patriotism of the Japanese; in the second, with their absolute silence and secrecy, and, in the third place, with the behavior of our English cousin since his marriage to Madame Chrysanthemum——"
"The document was therefore not genuine?" asked the colonel.