“Never!” he exclaimed.  “There is nothing so foolish as the way many of you English seem to regard us Germans as though we were wild beasts of prey.  Now it gives me pleasure to talk with a man like yourself, Mr. Norgate.  I like to look a little into the future and speculate as to our two countries.  Above all things, this thing I do truly know.  The German nation stands for peace.  Yet in order that peace shall everywhere prevail, a small war, a humanely-conducted war, may sometime within the future, one must believe, take place.  It would last but a short time, but it might lead to great changes.  I have sometimes thought, my young friend Norgate, that such a war might be the greatest blessing which England could ever experience.”

“As a discipline, you mean?” Norgate murmured.

“As a cleansing tonic,” Selingman declared.  “It would sweep out your Radical Government.  It would bring the classes back to power.  It would kindle in the spirits of your coming generation the spark of that patriotism which is, alas! just now a very feeble flame.  What do you think?  You agree with me, eh?”

“It is going a long way,” Norgate said cautiously, “to approve of a form of discipline so stringent.”

“But not too far—­oh, believe me, not too far!” Selingman insisted.  “If that war should come, it would come solely with the idea of sweeping away this Government, which is most distasteful to all German politicians.  It would come solely with the idea that with a new form of government here, more solid and lasting terms of friendship could be arranged between Germany and England.”

“A very interesting theory,” Norgate remarked.  “Do you believe in it yourself?”

Selingman paused to give an order to a waiter.  His tone suddenly became more serious.  He pointed to the menu.

“They have dared,” he exclaimed, “to bring us Hollandaise sauce with the asparagus!  A gastronomic indignity!  It is such things as this which would endanger the entente between our countries.”

“I don’t mind Hollandaise” Norgate ventured.

“Then of eating you know very little,” Herr Selingman pronounced.  “There is only one sauce to be served with asparagus, and that is finely drawn butter.  I have explained to the maitre d’hotel.  He must bring us what I desire.  Meanwhile, we spoke, I think, of our two countries.  You asked me a question.  I do indeed believe in the theories which I have been advancing.”

“But wouldn’t a war smash up your crockery business?” Norgate asked.

“For six months, yes!  And after that six months, fortunes for all of us, trade such as the world has never known, a settled peace, a real union between two great and friendly countries.  I wish England well.  I love England.  I love my holidays over here, my business trips which are holidays in themselves, and for their sake and for my own sake, I say that just a little wrestle, a slap on the cheek from one and a punch on the nose from the other, and we should find ourselves.”