All our efforts are directed towards promoting a better understanding with England, towards teaching the two countries to appreciate one another.

But in the background there is always something else.

It is useless to deny that the mistrust existing between the two countries has brought them more than once almost to the verge of war.

What we want is to be able, at critical times, to throw oil upon the troubled waters, and if the worst should come, if a war really should break out, then we want to be able to act as peacemakers, to heal as soon as possible any little sores that there may be, and to enter afterwards upon a greater friendship with a purified England." "It sounds very interesting," Norgate confessed.

"I had an idea that you were proposing something quite different." "Please explain." "To be perfectly frank with you," Norgate acknowledged, "I thought you wanted me to do the ordinary spy business--traces of fortresses, and particulars about guns and aeroplanes--" "Rubbish, my dear fellow!" Selingman interrupted.