"Never said they could," remarked the Doctor, with a tone as near to a
sneer as a good-natured host can allow himself. "But they'll invade
fast enough. I know what I am talking about."

"You don't mean to tell me," said the Critic, "that a nation like
Germany--I'm talking now about the people, the country that has been
the hot bed of Socialism,--will stand for a war of invasion?"

That started the Doctor off. He flayed the theorists, the people who
reasoned with their emotions and not their brains, the mob that looked
at externals, and never saw the fires beneath, the throng that was
unable to understand anything outside its own horizon, the mass that
pretended to read the history of the world, and because it changed its
clothes imagined that it had changed its spirit.

"Why, I've lived in Germany," he cried. "I was educated there. I know
them. I have the misfortune to understand them. They'll stick together
and Socialism go hang--as long as there is a hope of victory. The
Confederation was cemented in the blood of victory. It can only be
dissolved in the blood of defeat. They are a great, a well-disciplined,
and an obedient people."

"One would think you admired them and their military system," remarked
the Critic, a bit crest-fallen at the attack.

"I may not, but I'll tell you one sure thing if you want a good circus
you've got to train your animals. The Kaiser has been a corking
ringmaster."

Of course this got a laugh, and though both Critic and Journalist