Arabs make an effort they'll make it simultaneously in both
countries. Then the British, being in the same mess with the
French, would have to take the French side and make a joint
campaign of it."

"But don't the British know this?"

"You bet they know it. What's the Intelligence for? The French
are hiring all the Arab newspapers to preach against the British.
A child could see it with his eyes shut."

"Then why in thunder don't the British have a showdown?"

"That's where the joker comes in. The French know there's a sort
of diplomatic credo at the London Foreign Office to the general
effect that England and France have got to stand together or
Europe will go to pieces. The French are realists. They bank
on that. They tread on British corns, out here, all they want
to, while they toss bouquets, backed by airplanes, across the
English Channel."

"Then the war didn't end the old diplomacy?"

"What a question! But I haven't more than scratched the Near
East surface for you yet. There's Mustapha Kemal in Anatolia,
leader of the Turkish Nationalists, no more dead or incapacitated
than a possum. He's playing for his own hand--Kaiser Willy
stuff--studying Trotzky and Lenin, and flirting with Feisul's
party on the side. Then there's a Bolshevist element among the
Zionists--got teeth, too. There's an effort being made from