I gathered that he was a fine
linguist, and had got to know pretty well the society in those parts.
He spoke familiarly of many names that I remembered to have seen
in the newspapers.
He had played about with politics, he told me, at first for the
interest of them, and then because he couldn't help himself. I read
him as a sharp, restless fellow, who always wanted to get down to
the roots of things. He got a little further down than he wanted.
I am giving you what he told me as well as I could make it out.
Away behind all the Governments and the armies there was a big
subterranean movement going on, engineered by very dangerous
people. He had come on it by accident; it fascinated him; he went
further, and then he got caught. I gathered that most of the people
in it were the sort of educated anarchists that make revolutions, but
that beside them there were financiers who were playing for money.
A clever man can make big profits on a falling market, and it suited
the book of both classes to set Europe by the ears.
He told me some queer things that explained a lot that had
puzzled me--things that happened in the Balkan War, how one
state suddenly came out on top, why alliances were made and
broken, why certain men disappeared, and where the sinews of war
came from. The aim of the whole conspiracy was to get Russia and
Germany at loggerheads.
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