“I was ashamed, cracking that chestnut,” said Mark, “but Alexandra and the youngsters seemed to think it a real side-splitter to judge by the noise they made.”
“Nice people,” said Bram.
“You bet,” spoke Mark emphatically, “and that’s why I’ll have a word or two with the War Office of this here realm before I quit. I have been thinking, you know. When we got through with the grub at General Versen’s and retired to the smoking room, that Kaiser, in the meantime reinforced by a lot of his officers that came in for beer, pretzels and cigars—that Kaiser worked himself up into a fine frenzy about his U-boats. His Germania Shipyards at Kiel (they were really Krupps, but he was the principal stockholder) would turn out better and bigger U-boats, he said, than the French and English could ever hope to build. And when he had enough of them, with all the improvements science and technique could provide—then beware, proud Albion!
“Invasion was the least he threatened unless England helped him exterminate France.
“‘It was the easiest thing in the world,’ boasted William, ‘a hundred U-boats operating against England, Scotland and Ireland simultaneously could pull off the trick in a day or two.’”
Mark lit a fresh cigar, tilted his feet as high as the chiffonier allowed and developed what he was pleased to call his “strategy.”
“You see,” he said, “the waters ’round these islands are charted to the last half pint. The British Admiralty knows the bottom as well as the surface and the coast. Now suppose Willie or any other divinely Appointed One (I don’t think, though, there is another as foolish and reckless as he) should attempt to carry out that invasion threat. Mind, its possibilities are not denied by British strategists; I have made inquiries. Now, to meet invasion in the old orthodox way would cost a million lives, a thousand millions in treasure, and, after all, the result would be problematical.
“To make defeat of the invasion plans certain, we must forestall execution. And the only way to do that is to stew those U-boats in their own electric fat—juice, I mean. See my point?”
Bram and I said we did, “but—” and Twain, knowing that we were lying like thieves, explained:
“In time of peace, et cetera.... In this case (I will have the device patented, of course) we will build a steel fence all around the three kingdoms, height to be determined by local conditions. In all cases it will be so graduated as to allow the biggest ocean liner to pass over, yet high enough to bar the biggest and the smallest U-boat pirate. Are you on?” asked Mark.