nobody in town.

Otherwise there might have been loss of life.




Chapter 7

A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS


The Russians, led by General Vodkakoff, arrived at Hampstead half an
hour after the bombardment had ceased, and the rest of the invaders,
including Raisuli, who had got off on an _alibi_, dropped in at
intervals during the week. By the evening of Saturday, the sixth of
August, even the Chinese had limped to the metropolis. And the question
now was, What was going to happen? England displayed a polite
indifference to the problem. We are essentially a nation of
sight-seers. To us the excitement of staring at the invaders was
enough. Into the complex international problems to which the situation
gave rise it did not occur to us to examine. When you consider that a
crowd of five hundred Londoners will assemble in the space of two
minutes, abandoning entirely all its other business, to watch a
cab-horse that has fallen in the street, it is not surprising that the
spectacle of nine separate and distinct armies in the metropolis left
no room in the British mind for other reflections.

The attraction was beginning to draw people back to London now. They
found that the German shells had had one excellent result, they had