Page:Robert Barr - Lord Stranleigh Philanthropist.djvu/209

 out of the possession of the man in charge. If the lever across the doorway is not properly adjusted, and a man enters, his life flashes from him like the flame from a blown candle. Yet as I stood on that wild headland, I realised that so great has been the advance in modern gunnery that a warship, quite out of sight over the horizon, could smite the station into ruins with a single shell."

The Minister looked at him with a quizzical smile, his eyes twinkling.

"Any Irish blood in your veins, Lord Stranleigh?"

"Oh, yes! My grandmother" here his lordship paused. It was quite alien to make any boast of his ancestry, and the young man was proud of his grandmother.

"I thought so," commented Wynn. "I had an Irish grandmother, too. To return, however, to our muttons"

"That's Welsh," said Stranleigh.

"Yes, Welsh and good. No sheep like them, you know. As I intended to remark, all you say about the destruction of wireless stations holds good of the coastguards. A well-aimed shell would knock one of them out of business quite as effectually as it would an electrical installation."