prime minister
Your Majesty sees the culprit before you.
king
Are you trying to make war?
prime minister
I am trying, your Majesty, to save the country from the results of your Majesty's indiscretion in calling the Ambassador to your palace without consulting your Ministers. If we do not strike now we lose our prestige as a great nation, our national honor is dragged in the dust. We have to fight. We cannot afford to back down.
king
[Striding across the room, agitatedly.
But this is unholy, barbaric—this deliberate concoction of a great, terrible war. I saw clearly this evening as I was talking with the Ambassador how utterly without inner necessity this war-scare is. It is a made thing from beginning to end, and I refuse absolutely to sanction it.
chief of staff