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 Rh itself can be largely moved from the Quirinal through the Vatican.”

“Why of course it can,” I agreed, with as much relief in my tone as I could put into it. After all, what simpler way of moving the Ballplatz than that?

The Eminent Authority took another sip at his tea, and looked round at us through his spectacles.

It was I who was taking on myself to do most of the answering, because it was I who had brought him there and invited the other men to meet him. “He’s coming round at five,” I had said, “do come and have a cup of tea and meet him. He knows more about the European situation and the probable solution than any other man living.” Naturally they came gladly. They wanted to know—as everybody wants to know—how the war will end. They were just ordinary plain men like myself.

I could see that they were a little mystified, perhaps disappointed. They would have liked, just as I would, to ask a few plain questions, such as, can the Italians knock the stuff out of the Austrians? Are the Rumanians getting licked or not? How many submarines has Germany got, anyway? Such questions, in fact, as we are accustomed to put up to one another every day at lunch and to answer out