Magin regarded him a moment.
"Well," he conceded, "Europe does take on a new perspective from the point of view of Susa. I see you are a philosopher, sitting amidst the ruins of empires and wisely preferring the trickle of your fountain to the trickle of the telegraph. If Austria falls to pieces, if Serbia reaches the Adriatic, what is that to us? Nothing but a story that in Elam has been told too often to have any novelty! Eh?"
"Why," asked Matthews, quickly, "is that on already?"
Magin looked at him again a moment before answering.
"Not yet! But why," he added, "do you say already?"
His voice had a curious rumble in the dim stone room. Matthews wondered whether it were because the acoustic properties of a serdab in Dizful differ from those of a galley on the Karun, or whether there really were something new about him.
"Why, it's bound to come sooner or later, isn't it? If it's true that all the way from Nish to Ragusa those chaps speak the same language and belong to the same race, one can hardly blame them for wanting to do what the Italians and the Germans have already done. And, as a philosopher sitting amidst the ruins of empires, wouldn't you say yourself that Austria has bitten off rather more than she can chew?"
"Very likely I should." Magin took a cigar out of his pocket, snipped off the end with a patent cutter, lighted it, and regarded the smoke with a growing look of amusement. "But," he went on, "as a philosopher sitting amidst the ruins of empires, I would hardly confine that observation to Austria-Hungary. For instance, I have heard"—and his look of amusement verged on a smile—"of an island in the Atlantic Ocean not much larger than the land of Elam, an island of rains and fogs whose people, feeling the need of a little more sunlight perhaps, or of pin-money and elbow-room, sailed away and conquered for themselves two entire continents, as well as a good part of a third. I have also heard that the inhabitants of this island, not content with killing and enslaving so many defenseless fellow-creatures, or with picking up any lesser island, cape, or bay that happened to suit their fancy, took it upon themselves to govern several hundred million unwilling individuals of all colors and religions in other parts of the world. And, having thus procured both sunlight and elbow-room, those enterprising islanders assumed a virtuous air and pushed the high cries—as our friend Gaston would say—if any of their neighbors ever showed the slightest symptom of following their very successful example. Have you ever heard of such an island? And would you not say—as a philosopher sitting amidst the ruins of empires—that it had also bitten off rather more than it could chew?"
Matthews, facing the question and the now open smile, felt that he wanted to be cool, but that he did not altogether succeed.
"I dare say that two or three hundred years ago we did things we wouldn't do now. Times have changed in all sorts of ways. But we never set out like a Cæsar or a Napoleon or a Bismarck to invent an empire. It all came about quite naturally. Anybody else could have done the same. But nobody else thought of it—at the time. We simply got there first."