thing. And it will happen to you also. The pressure of destiny will
force you to administer the Whole of America from Mexico to the Horn."

Headingly whistled.

"Our Jingoes would be pleased to hear you, Colonel Cochrane," said he.
"They'd vote you into our Senate and make you one of the Committee on
Foreign Relations."

"The world is small, and it grows smaller every day. It's a single
organic body, and one spot of gangrene is enough to vitiate the whole.
There's no room upon it for dishonest, defaulting, tyrannical,
irresponsible Governments. As long as they exist they will always be
sources of trouble and of danger. But there are many races which appear
to be so incapable of improvement that we can never hope to get a good
Government out of them. What is to be done, then? The former device of
Providence in such a case was extermination by some more virile stock--
an Attila or a Tamerlane pruned off the weaker branch. Now, we have a
more merciful substitution of rulers, or even of mere advice from a more
advanced race. That is the case with the Central Asian Khanates and
with the protected States of India. If the work has to be done, and if
we are the best fitted for the work, then I think that it would be a
cowardice and a crime to shirk it."

"But who is to decide whether it is a fitting case for your
interference?" objected the American. "A predatory country could grab
every other land in the world upon such a pretext."

"Events--inexorable, inevitable events--will decide it. Take this
Egyptian business as an example. In 1881 there was nothing in this