The conviction grew upon me that Blenkiron was deliberately trying to prove himself an honest idiot.

If so, it was a huge success.

He produced on one the impression of the type of sentimental revolutionary who ruthlessly knifes his opponent and then weeps and prays over his tomb.
Just at the end he seemed to pull himself together and to try a little argument.

He made a great point of the Austrian socialists going to Stockholm, going freely and with their Government's assent, from a country which its critics called an autocracy, while the democratic western peoples held back.

'I admit I haven't any real water-tight proof,' he said, 'but I will bet my bottom dollar that the influence which moved the Austrian Government to allow this embassy of freedom was the influence of Germany herself.