"Meaning, one would suppose, that the Luxembourg garrison was a right which had been given up as unimportant, and therefore was of no more value than a dead dog, set against the cost of a new war."
"I'm obliged for your information," said Mr. Knewbit, pushing back his chair and getting up to reach his brass tobacco-box from the high kitchen mantelshelf. "In return I'll give you a bit o' news—which may be of walley to you. You have been talking A.1 journalism, young man, as different from the stuff you commonly put on paper as gold is from this metal"—he tapped the brass tobacco-box—"and—my advice is—For the future, write only of what you know; have felt, and heard and seen!"
He sucked despairingly at the wooden pipe he was filling and, finding it foul, stuck the stem in the spout of the boiling kettle—a practice abhorred of Miss Ling—and left it to be cleaned as he continued:
"Big things are going on in the world at this moment—things worth watching and waiting for. Damme!—though I'm not a swearer as a rule," said the little man, "if I don't wish I could change places with something that has wings. The great man we have been a-talking of is at this minute at his country-seat in Pomerania—that's the estate he bought with the grant—sixty thousand pounds English, it came to—the German Parliament voted him after the Prussian-Austrian War. And the King of Prussia is at Ems, a-drinking the waters, and the French Ambassador has been sent there by the Emperor Napoleon III. to obtain a special audience, I'm told. And if you or me could swop jobs with a fly on the wall at one place or the other—being a German insect it would be likely to understand their crack jaw language—me or you would be able to supply a leaded half-column for Special Issue that would fairly set the world afire. See this!"
He took the short poker from the top of Miss Ling's kitchen-range, and, pushing back his chair, rose and approached the wall, which was destitute of pictures, and distempered in an economical brown color.
"Look here, I say!..." began P. C. Breagh.
"The breath of genius inflates me," said Mr. Knewbit, who had had more than his allowance of beer at supper. "The impulse to prophesy stimulates me. Look at this!"
He wielded the poker deftly as he spoke. And on the brown distemper appeared in huge white letters:
WILL THERE BE WAR?
YES!
HOHENZOLLERN QUESTION NO DEAD DOG TO FRANCE!
GAUL, AND TEUTON RIPE FOR CONFLICT.
BISMARCK'S VIEWS!
"But, there, my inspiration gives out," said Mr. Knewbit, replacing the poker on the range and shaking his head mournfully, "unless it was possible to change with that fly on the wall—and take him at one of his expansive, confidential moments—if he ever has any—neither me nor any other man living will ever be able to give Bismarck's real views upon this or any other subject dealing with Politics. Who's this?"