A Fantasy of Far Japan

--'But, baron, what do you think of the present political situation?' she said. 'What is the real sentiment of England?'

--'You must know such things better than I. To me, however, it seems England is perfectly sincere in her good wishes towards France. She has no arriere pensee.'

--'But some people say she wants war with our neighbour,' said she.

--'No! decidedly not,' I said. 'I know there are many people in England who have no confidence in German policy; but "want war," "provoke war," decidedly not!'

--'That's my opinion too,' said she quickly.

Hereupon a few gentlemen joined in our discussion. We went over the international situation of the day from many points, with many hypotheses and conjectures. We thought the discussion both interesting and beneficial; the trend of the conversation naturally turned upon the bearing of the international relationship in the Far East. A rumou