Shown into a large room, he saw seated at a big desk the man who is said to have said that he did not know when the war would end, but he did know when it would begin, and fixed that date at about eight months after the actual declaration--after millions of pounds had been expended and hundreds of thousands of English dead. Cold, powerful, relentless, and determined, Edestone knew that it was useless to appeal to a sense of humanity in this man who, sitting at his desk early and late, directed the great machine that slowly but surely was drawing to itself the youth and vigour of all England, there to feed and fatten, flatter and amuse these poor boys from the country, and with music and noise destroy their sensibilities before sending them across the Channel to live for their few remaining days in holes in the ground that no self-respecting beast would with his own consent occupy. To appeal to a sense of duty so strong in him as applied to England, was one thing; but to convince him that Edestone as an American had a sense of duty to the nations of Europe was something quite different. This man of steel had no imagination, he was convinced, and to ask him to follow him in his flights would be as useless as to request him to whistle Yankee Doodle. He had a chance to decide all this while Rockstone, who had risen and received him with courtesy, was reading the letters he presented. The great soldier's face never changed once as he read them all with care. "Your credentials are satisfactory," he finally said, "but I do not quite understand what it is you wish. Your letters say that you do not want to sell anything, which is most extraordinary; I thought you Americans always wanted to sell something." And his face assumed the expression of a man who, having no sense of humour, thought that he had perhaps made a joke. "If you have drawings and photographs of a new instrument of war," he caught himself up abruptly, "I should greatly prefer that you submit these to the Ordnance Department; but since your Secretary of State has been so insistent, I will look at them tomorrow. I will give you an appointment from 9 to 9:15." And he rose and bowed. CHAPTER IV THE FIRST REBUFF At exactly a quarter past nine the following morning, Lord Rockstone