King's negotiations?

prime minister

[Rising, with the message in his hand.

Gentlemen, I have seen fit to abbreviate the King's message. I have not altered a word nor added a word. I have merely omitted all that did not seem to me pertinent or useful. The message reads as follows: "The King sent for the Ambassador of the Republic this afternoon and outlined a plan that would satisfy the royal government. The Ambassador regretted that he was unable to consider any compromise. The King replied that then he could have nothing more to say in the matter."

minister of war

There's ginger, by Heaven! The other was a dove-peep to a parley. This is a trumpet call of defiance.

chief of staff

[With quiet delight.

The Republic will never swallow that.

prime minister

They are not supposed to. They will declare war, and then be the aggressors.

minister of war

[Exultantly.

Our God of old lives yet and will not let us perish in disgrace!

chief of staff

[Looking about.

My helmet. Damn it! Where is my helmet? I am going to dig at the plans once more. If God lets me lead the armies in such a fight, the devil can come when I'm through and fetch away the old carcass.

prime minister

[To minister of war.

Where's your Secretary?

minister of war

[Crossing to door.

Secretary, here!

[secretary enters.

prime minister

[Handing him the paper.

To the telegraph-operator with this. It is to be sent to every news bureau in the city and to all our embassies abroad.

minister of war

Tomorrow, the mobilization!

chief of staff

Tonight! I need those twelve hours for my plans.

[The secretary holds the door open for the chief of staff who is about to go out when suddenly in the doorway appears a young man of thirty, pale, dark, timid. He hesitates on the threshold.

secretary

[Taken aback, bowing.

Your Majesty!

chief of staff

[Drawing back.

My King!

[prime minister and minister of war bow.

king

[Courteously.

I trust I am not breaking in upon a matter that does not concern me?

prime minister

There is nothing that the King's servants may do that does not concern the King.

king

True. But sometimes the King is kept in ignorance nevertheless.

[To the secretary.

What paper is that you have there, if you please?

secretary

[With an uneasy glance at the others.

Here, your Majesty.

minister of war

[Aside to secretary.

Get out!

[Exit secretary.

prime minister

It is the report of your Majesty's interview with the Ambassador.

king

[Glancing at the paper and speaking in quick, excited tones.

My message has been altered. It was conciliatory. It is a challenge now. Who did this?

prime minister

Your Majesty sees the culprit before you.

king

Are you trying to make war?

prime minister

I am trying, your Majesty, to save the country from the results of your Majesty's indiscretion in calling the Ambassador to your palace without consulting your Ministers. If we do not strike now we lose our prestige as a great nation, our national honor is dragged in the dust. We have to fight. We cannot afford to back down.

king

[Striding across the room, agitatedly.

But this is unholy, barbaric—this deliberate concoction of a great, terrible war. I saw clearly this evening as I was talking with the Ambassador how utterly without inner necessity this war-scare is. It is a made thing from beginning to end, and I refuse absolutely to sanction it.

chief of staff

[Deliberately.

Your Majesty is an idealist. We are practical, and, I may say, far-seeing men. And we are the three men, perhaps, who have given your Majesty the chair you sit on and made your kingdom what it is.

king

[Drawing himself up.

I think I have not been ungrateful. But my people come first, and I will not have my people plunged into misery for no valid and inevitable necessity.

prime minister

Your Majesty, I have served you for fifteen years and I served your exalted father for twenty. You are right. This war may be avoided. In two days this war-cloud could be so utterly dissipated that men would laugh here and in the great Republic that for a day they had talked so hotly of war. Dissipated. For a year, for two years. For always? No. The war must come sooner or later. It is a matter, in the first place, of prestige, of national honor. But, more emphatically, it is a question of mathematics, birth-rate, death-rate, revenue, taxes, industries, imports, exports.

[Crossing to left.

There is a map of the world, your Majesty. This stretch of land there we need as a safety-valve. If we get that we are safe. If we fail to get it we explode. Not at once. But sooner or later. Our army and navy have never been in better shape. These two gentlemen can give your Majesty their word for that. But you can take mine, too. The enemy's army is politically rotten, and enfeebled by sentimental peace propaganda. Their defenses are inadequate and their navy likewise. Those things will change. Strike today—and they never raise their heads again. Wait—and it is you who may be crushed.

king

[Sharply.

That is a theory. Not a fact. Ten years may change the aspect of things entirely, particularly if we use those ten years in preparations not for war but for peace, honest at home and abroad, just, open, civil, to our neighbors.

prime minister

Your Majesty, I look farther than ten years, farther than ten times ten years. And I have wrought for this moment, prepared for this moment, this moment of our strength and our enemy's weakness. I have a right to insist that I, who have