..nothing under heaven could have averted this impending war but a
huge standing army in Great Britain...hasn't Lord Roberts been crying out
for it?....Dad and I dined at his house one night in London and the only
picture in the dining-room was an oil painting of the Kaiser in a red
uniform, done expressly for Lord Roberts...funny world...and now Britain's
got a civil war on her hands and mutinous officers who won't go over
and shoot men of their own class in Ulster....Russia hasn't built her
strategic railways--all the money used up in graft....Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!
who'd have thought it?...Twentieth century and all the rest of it."
"Twentieth century...war...how utterly absurd....I don't wish to be
rude...but really..."
This from every one to whom Alexina and Aileen, or even Judge Lawton,
communicated their fears.
II
One day Alexina and Aileen met in San Francisco by appointment and
telephoned to James Kirkpatrick, asking him to lunch with them at the
California Market. He accepted with alacrity, and laughed genially at their
apprehensions. War? War? Not on your life. There'll never be another war.
Socialists won't permit it. The kaiser? To hell with the kaiser. (Excuse
me.) He, James Kirkpatrick, was in frequent correspondence with
certain German socialists. They would declare themselves in the coming
International Congress for the general strike if any sovereign--or
President--dared to try to put over a war on the millions of determined
socialists, syndicalists, internationalists, and communists in Great
Britain and Europe; he'd get the surprise of his life.
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