'No,' he answered smiling. 'That's the leading question. We must fight as you fought the Red Indians. We have no fear of war at present—our ways are the ways of peace.'
'Naturally,' I answered, 'since the German Minister tells me that Germany will never fight France unless attacked, and he sees no signs of that.'
'The Belgians are growing restless because Hamburg is taking all the Brazilian coffee trade,' he said, absent-mindedly.
'Which means, interpreted,' I answered, 'that we might well look after our interests in Brazil.'
'Like all Frenchmen,' he said, 'I am ignorant of foreign geography, but our Ambassador in Washington is different; he knows the world, and the United States.'
I thanked him; I was always glad to hear Frenchmen speak well of Mr. Jusserand. He deserved all the praise they could give him.
'My friend,' said Paul Loubet, 'says the world and the United States, which means, I suppose, that Europe is one world and the United States another.' 'It almost seems so in Europe; but your acquisition of the Philippines will probably make you more and more a part of the European world.' 'I am afraid that George Washington and Lafayette would not have liked this,' said the ex-President.
One of the French delegates asked me whether it was true that the Germans would try to make terms with us for a cession of some foreign territory for one of the Philippine Islands. Waldhausen was at my elbow; I, smiling, put the question to him.
'It is Arcadian,' he said.
'Germany never gives up what she holds,' said the Frenchman, also smiling. 'Otherwise, you might induce her to surrender Heligoland to England, for a consideration, with the understanding that England should give it back to Denmark.'