Russia is in a position to absorb the whole attention of Austria and even to invade the north coast of Germany.

The hundred thousand troops or so upon which we could rely from Great Britain, would be invaluable for many reasons--first, because a mixture of blood is always good; secondly, because the regular army which perforce they would have to send us, is of very fine fighting material; and thirdly, because they could land, to give away a very open secret to you, my friend Selingman, in a westerly position, and would very likely succeed thereby in making an outflanking movement towards the north.

I presume that at present the German fleet would not come out to battle, in which case the English would certainly be able to do great execution upon the northern coast of Germany.

All this, of course, has been discussed and written about, and the next war been mapped out in a dozen different ways.

I must confess, however, that taking every known consideration into account, I can find no other distribution of powers so reasonable or so favourable to my country." Mr.Grex nodded.
"I find no fault with any word of what you have said," he declared, "except that yours is simply the superficial and obvious idea of the man in the street as to the course of the next probable war.