"Dunno. Hope not. Awful business if it does."
"Remember how we were promised a world-war two years ago, just before the Balkans took fire?"
"Yes. That was a near thing, too. But they weren't quite ready then. Now they are ready, and they think we're not. If I were asked, I'd say we ought to let them know we're ready for 'em. They want to fight because they think they can catch us napping; they'd think twice if they knew they couldn't do it."
"Are they blind and deaf? Can't they see and hear?"
"Quern deus vult perdere, prius dementat, Ponsonby, my boy."
The man in drab silk slipped into a chair next to Kirby's as a wolf slips into his lair, very circumspectly, and without noise; then he rutched the chair sidewise toward Kirby with about as much noise as a company of infantry would make.
"Had a drink?" he asked, as Kirby looked up from his paper. "Have one?"
"Ginger ale, please," said Kirby, putting the paper down.
A turbaned waiter brought long glasses in which ice tinkled, and the two sipped slowly, not looking at each other.
"Know Yasmini?" asked the man in drab silk suddenly.