"I, not less," said Trevelle. "Do you think, though, that the world is very much in love with sane ideas just now? I don't. You hit the multitude either with fact or fiction. The _via media_ leads nowhere. Sir Jules says to these people, 'I can give you peace, but my scheme may take twenty years to mature.' So they think in a twenty years' measure!"
"Meanwhile the other man, who says 'Here is the millennium, take it!'--he is on the first floor. None the less, I would go on if I were Sir Jules. He's got a real good thing. When he's advertised it long enough, the public will know it's real good, and he'll get a hearing. I said and I repeat: 'Educate the people--the others wouldn't let you educate 'em, if you could.'"
"I wish you'd come in yourself," he said, falling suddenly to great earnestness. "By gad! that would be a coup for Sir Jules! Have you ever thought about it, Mr. Faber? You are one of the few who could really help him. Why not come and form an international committee? You could work the American end yourself--no one better! I'm sure it must be some interest to America to see a final settlement in Europe, even if she has to make sacrifices to obtain it. Now, won't you think of it?"
Faber seemed very much amused. He had expected this request from one or the other, but he recognised now that Sir Jules had been too shrewd to make it. Why, the very essence of his scheme was an assault upon American enterprise. It required this undaunted hustler to put the thing in plain terms--he liked Trevelle none the less for his effrontery.
"I'll think of it all right," he said, still smiling; "perhaps I can see myself upon an American platform telling my fellow countrymen that the only way to keep Europeans from cutting each other's throats is to tax our goods another twenty per cent. That's the pith of Sir Jules's proposal. Free trade in Europe as a federated state--no more internecine rivalry. All brothers, except when the United States are on hand. You save your war bills because you fight for commercial reasons nowadays, and there won't be any commercial rivalries there. Well, I don't think it would do on my side, great as it is here. Make a federated state of Europe, if you like, but my countrymen would sooner federate Christ and His disciples. That's an honest truth, sir. I do believe my country is averse to war, because Almighty God has taught her to be so. I am thankful that it should be so, and yet I don't put human nature on too high a pedestal, and I believe America would fight to-morrow if a slap in her face rang loud enough. That's why I go on making guns for a living. I don't want to see men shot any more than any other man; but I do hold that the fighting instinct is deep down in the heart of every man, and that you will require some centuries yet to root it out. My gospel's there in so many words--I'm too old to alter it, and some of you will say I make too much money out of it."