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02 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton · Daily Sci-Fi Books

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Speaker 1: Chapter two, The end of Olive Island. The great sea
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Speaker 1: Dragon of the changing colors that wriggles round the world
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Speaker 1: like a chameleon, was pale green as it washed on Pebblewick,
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Speaker 1: but strong blue where it broke on the Ionian Isles,
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Speaker 1: one of the innumerable islets, hardly more than a flat
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Speaker 1: white rock in the azure. Expanse was celebrated as the
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Speaker 1: Isle of Olives, not because it was rich in such vegetation,
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Speaker 1: but because, by some freak of soil or climate, two
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Speaker 1: or three little olives grew there to an unparalleled height,
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Speaker 1: even in the full heat of the South. It is
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Speaker 1: very unusual for an olive tree to grow any taller
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Speaker 1: than a small pear tree, but the three olives that
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Speaker 1: stood up as signals on this sterile place might well
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Speaker 1: be mistaken except for the shape for moderate sized pines
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Speaker 1: or larches of the north. It was also connected with
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Speaker 1: some ancient Greek legend of a palace the patroness of
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Speaker 1: the olive. For all that sea was alive with the
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Speaker 1: first fairyland of Hellas, and from the platform of marble
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Speaker 1: under the olive trees could be seen the gray outline
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Speaker 1: of Ithaca on the island, and under the trees was
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Speaker 1: a table set in the open air and covered with
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Speaker 1: papers and inkstands. At the table were sitting four men,
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Speaker 1: two in uniform and two in plain black clothes. Aides
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Speaker 1: de camp, equerries and such persons stood in a group
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Speaker 1: in the background, and behind them a string of two
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Speaker 1: or three silent battleships lay along the sea. For peace
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Speaker 1: was being given to Europe. There had just come to
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Speaker 1: an end the long agony of one of the many
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Speaker 1: unsuccessful efforts to break the strength of Turkey and save
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Speaker 1: the small Christian tribes. There had been many other such
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Speaker 1: meetings in the later phases of the matter, as one
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Speaker 1: after another the small nations gave up the struggle or
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Speaker 1: the greater nations came in to coerce them. But the
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Speaker 1: interested parties had now dwindled to these four. For the
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Speaker 1: powers of Europe, being entirely agreed on the necessity for
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Speaker 1: peace on a Turkish basis, were content to lead the
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Speaker 1: last negotiations to England and Germany, who could be trusted
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Speaker 1: to enforce it. There was a representative of the Sultan,
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Speaker 1: of course, and there was a representative of the only
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Speaker 1: enemy of the Sultan who had not hitherto come to terms,
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Speaker 1: for one tiny power had alone carried on the war
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Speaker 1: month after month, and with a tenacity and temporary success
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Speaker 1: that was a new nine days marvel every morning. An
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Speaker 1: obscure and scarcely recognized prince calling himself the King of Ithaca,
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Speaker 1: had filled the Eastern Mediterranean with exploits that were not
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Speaker 1: unworthy of the audacious parallel that the name of his
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Speaker 1: island suggested. Poets could not help asking if it were Odysseus.
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Speaker 1: Patriotic Greeks, even if they themselves had been forced to
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Speaker 1: lay down their arms, could not help feeling curious as
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Speaker 1: to what Greek race or name was boasted by the
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Speaker 1: new and heroic royal house. It was therefore, with some
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Speaker 1: amusement that the world at last discovered that the descendant
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Speaker 1: of Ulysses was a cheeky Irish adventurer named Patrick Delroy,
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Speaker 1: who had once been in the English Navy, had gotten
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Speaker 1: into a quarrel through his Fenian sympathies and resigned his commission.
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Speaker 1: Since then he had seen many adventures in many uniforms,
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Speaker 1: and always got himself or someone else into hot water.
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Speaker 1: With an extraordinary mixture of cynicism and Quiho Tree in
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Speaker 1: his fantastic little kingdom. Of course, he had been his
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Speaker 1: own general, his own admiral, his own foreign secretary, and
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Speaker 1: his own ambassador. But he was always careful to follow
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Speaker 1: the wishes of his people in the essentials of peace
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Speaker 1: and war, and it was at their direction that he
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Speaker 1: had come to lay down his sword at last. Besides
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Speaker 1: his professional skill, he was chiefly famous for his enormous
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Speaker 1: bodily strength and stature. It is the custom in newspapers
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Speaker 1: nowadays to say that mere barbaric muscular power is valueless
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Speaker 1: in modern military actions. But this view may be as
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Speaker 1: much exaggerated as its opposite. In such wars as these
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Speaker 1: of the Near East, where whole populations are slightly armed,
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Speaker 1: and personal assault as common, a leader who can defend
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Speaker 1: his head often has a real advantage, and it is
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Speaker 1: not true, even in a general way, that strength is
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Speaker 1: of no use. This was admitted by Lord Ivywood, the
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Speaker 1: English minister, who was pointing out in detail to King
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Speaker 1: Patrick the hopeless superiority of the light pattern of Turkish
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Speaker 1: field gun, and the King of Ithaca, remarking that he
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Speaker 1: was quite convinced, said he would take it with him,
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Speaker 1: and ran away with it under his arm. It would
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Speaker 1: be conceded by the greatest of the Turkish warriorsifying o
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Speaker 1: Man Pasha, equally famous for his courage in war and
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Speaker 1: his cruelty in peace, but who carried on his brow
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Speaker 1: a scar from Patrick's sword taken after three hours mortal combat,
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Speaker 1: a taken without spite or shame. He it said, for
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Speaker 1: the Turk is always at his best in that game.
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Speaker 1: Nor would the quality be doubted by mister Hart, a
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Speaker 1: financial friend of the German minister whom Patrick Dowroy. After
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Speaker 1: asking him which of his front windows he would prefer
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Speaker 1: to be thrown into, threw into his bedroom window on
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Speaker 1: the first floor, with so considerate an exactitude that he
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Speaker 1: alighted on the bed, where he was in a position
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Speaker 1: to receive any medical attention. But when all is said,
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Speaker 1: one muscular Irish gentleman on an island cannot fight all
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Speaker 1: Europe forever. And he came with a kind of gloomy
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Speaker 1: good humor to offer the terms now dictated to him
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Speaker 1: by his adopted country. He could not even knock all
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Speaker 1: the diplomatists down, for which he possessed both the power
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Speaker 1: and the inclination, For he realized with the juster part
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Speaker 1: of his mind that they were only obeying orders as
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Speaker 1: he was. So he sat heavily and sleepily at the
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Speaker 1: little table in the green and white uniform of the
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Speaker 1: Navy of Ithaca, invented by himself, a big bull of
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Speaker 1: a man, monstrously young for his size, with a bull
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Speaker 1: neck and two blue bull's eyes for eyes, and red
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Speaker 1: hair rising so steadily off his scalp that it looked
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Speaker 1: as if his head had caught fire, as some said
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Speaker 1: it had. The most dominant person present was the Great
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Speaker 1: omen Pasha himself, with his strong face starved by the
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Speaker 1: asceticism of war, his hair and mustache seeming rather blasted
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Speaker 1: with lightning than blanched with age, a red fez on
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Speaker 1: his head, and between the red fez and mustache a
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Speaker 1: scarret which the King of Ithaca did not look. His
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Speaker 1: eyes had an awful lack of expression. Lord Ivywood, the
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Speaker 1: English Minister, was probably the handsomest man in England. Say
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Speaker 1: that he was almost colorless, both in hair and complexion.
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Speaker 1: Against that blue marble sea, he might almost have been
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Speaker 1: one of its old marble statues that are foughtless in lime,
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Speaker 1: but show nothing but shades of gray. Or white. It
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Speaker 1: seemed a mere matter of the lack of lighting, whether
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Speaker 1: his hair looked dull silver or pale brown, and his
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Speaker 1: splendid mask never changed in color or expression. He was
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Speaker 1: one of the last of the old parliamentary orators, and
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Speaker 1: yet he was probably a comparatively young man. He could
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Speaker 1: make anything he had to mention blossom into verbal beauty.
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Speaker 1: Yet his face remained dead while his lips were alive.
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Speaker 1: He had little old fashioned ways as out of old parliaments.
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Speaker 1: For instance, he would always stand up, as in a senate,
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Speaker 1: to speak to those three other men alone on a
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Speaker 1: rock in the ocean. In all this he perhaps appeared
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Speaker 1: more personal in contrast to the man sitting next to him,
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Speaker 1: who never spoke at all, but whose face seemed to
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Speaker 1: speak for him. He was doctor Gluck, the German minister,
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Speaker 1: whose face had nothing German about it, neither the German
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Speaker 1: vision nor the German sleep. His face was as vivid
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Speaker 1: as a highly colored photograph, and altered like a cinema,
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Speaker 1: but his scarlet lips never moved in speech. His almond
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Speaker 1: eyes seemed to shine with all the shifting fires of
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Speaker 1: the opal. His small, curled black mustache seemed sometimes almost
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Speaker 1: to hoist itself afresh, like a live black snake, But
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Speaker 1: there came from him no sound. He put a paper
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Speaker 1: in front of Lord Ivywood. Lord Ivywood took a pair
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Speaker 1: of eyeglasses to read it, and looked ten years older
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Speaker 1: by the act. It was merely a statement of agenda
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Speaker 1: of the few last things to be settled at this
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Speaker 1: last conference. The first item ran the Ithacan ambassador asks
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Speaker 1: that the girls taken to Harems after the capture of
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Speaker 1: Pylos be restored to their families. This cannot be granted.
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Speaker 1: Lord Ivywood rose. The mere beauty of his voice startled
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Speaker 1: every one who had not heard it before. Your excellencies
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Speaker 1: and gentlemen, He said, a statement to whose policy I
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Speaker 1: by no means assent, but to whose historic status I
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Speaker 1: could not conceivably aspire, has familiarized you with a phrase
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Speaker 1: about peace with honor. But when we have to celebrate
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Speaker 1: a peace between such historic soldiers as Omen Pasha and
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Speaker 1: his majesty, the King of Ithaca, I think we may
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Speaker 1: say that it is peace with glory. He paused for
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Speaker 1: half an instant, yet even the silence of sea and
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Speaker 1: rock seemed full of multitudinous applause. So perfectly had the
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Speaker 1: words been spoken, I think there is but one thought
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Speaker 1: among us, whatever are many just objections, through these long
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Speaker 1: and harassing months of negotiations, I think there is but
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Speaker 1: one thought now, that the peace may be as full
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Speaker 1: as the war, that the peace may be as fearless
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Speaker 1: as the war. Once More, he paused an instant and
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Speaker 1: felt a phantom clapping, as it were not from the
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Speaker 1: hands but the heads of the men. He went on,
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Speaker 1: if we are to leave off fighting, we may surely
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Speaker 1: leave off haggling. A statute of limitations, or if you will,
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Speaker 1: an amnesty is surely proper, when so sublime a peace
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Speaker 1: seals so sublime a struggle. And if there be anything
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Speaker 1: in which an old diplomatist may advise you, I would
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Speaker 1: most strongly say this, that there should be no new
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Speaker 1: disturbance of whatever amicable or domestic ties have been formed
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Speaker 1: during this disturbed time. I will admit I am sufficiently
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Speaker 1: old fashioned to think any interference with the interior life
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Speaker 1: of the family a precedent of no little peril. Nor
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Speaker 1: will I be so illiberal as not to extend to
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Speaker 1: the ancient customs of Islam. But I would extend to
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Speaker 1: the ancient customs of Christianity. A suggestion has been brought
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Speaker 1: before us that we should enter into a renewed war
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Speaker 1: of recrimination as to whether certain women have left their
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Speaker 1: homes with or without their own consent. I can conceive
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Speaker 1: no controversy more perilous to begin, or more impossible to conclude.
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Speaker 1: I will venture to say that I express all your
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Speaker 1: thoughts when I say that, whatever wrongs may have been
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Speaker 1: brought on either side, the homes, the marriages, the family
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Speaker 1: arrangements of this great Ottoman Empire shall remain as they
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Speaker 1: are to day. No one moved except Patrick Delroy, who
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Speaker 1: put his hand on his sword hilt for a moment
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Speaker 1: and looked at them all with bursting eyes. Then his
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Speaker 1: hand fell, and he laughed out loud and sudden. Lord
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Speaker 1: Ivywood took no notice, but picked up the agenda paper
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Speaker 1: again and again, fitted on the glasses that made him
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Speaker 1: look older. He read the second item, needless to say,
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Speaker 1: not aloud. The German minister, with the far from German
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Speaker 1: face had written this note for him. Both Kute and
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Speaker 1: the Bemsteins insist there must be Chinese, for the Marble
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Speaker 1: Greeks cannot be trusted in the quarries just now. But
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Speaker 1: while continued, Lord Ivywood, we desire these fundamental institutions, such
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Speaker 1: as the Moslem family, to remain as they are even
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Speaker 1: at this moment. We do not assent to social stagnation.
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Speaker 1: Nor do we say for one moment that the great
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Speaker 1: tradition of Islam is capable alone of sustaining the necessities
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Speaker 1: of the Near East. But I would seriously ask your excellencies,
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Speaker 1: why should we be so vain as to suppose that
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Speaker 1: the only cure for the Near East is of necessity
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Speaker 1: the Near West. If new ideas are needed, if new
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Speaker 1: blood is needed, would it not be more natural to
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Speaker 1: appeal to those most living, those most laborious civilizations, which
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Speaker 1: formed the vast reserve of the Orient. Asia in Europe,
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Speaker 1: if my friend O Man Pasha will allow me, the
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Speaker 1: criticism has hitherto been Asia in arms. May we not
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Speaker 1: yet see Asia in Europe? And yet Asia in peace?
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Speaker 1: These at least are the reasons which lead me to
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Speaker 1: consent to a scheme of colonization. Patrick Delroy Sprang erect
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Speaker 1: pulling himself out of his seat by clutching at an
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Speaker 1: olive branch above his head. He steadied himself by putting
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Speaker 1: one hand on the trunk of the tree, and simply
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Speaker 1: stared at them. All there fell on him the huge
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Speaker 1: helplessness of mere physical power. He could throw them into
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Speaker 1: the sea, but what good would that do. More men
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Speaker 1: on the wrong side would be accredited to the diplomatic campaign,
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Speaker 1: and the only man on the right side would be
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Speaker 1: discredited for anything. He shocked the branching olive tree above
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Speaker 1: him in his fury, but he did not for one
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Speaker 1: moment disturb Lord Ivywood, who had just read the third
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Speaker 1: item on his private agenda. Oh Mampasha insists on the
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Speaker 1: destruction of the vineyards, and was by this time engaged
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Speaker 1: in a peroration which afterwards became famous and may be
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Speaker 1: found in many rhetorical text books and primers. He was
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Speaker 1: well into the middle of it before Delroy's rage and
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Speaker 1: wonder allowed him to follow the words do we indeed
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Speaker 1: own nothing? The diplomatist was saying, to that gesture of
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Speaker 1: high refusal, in which so many centuries ago the great
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Speaker 1: Arabian mystic put the wine cup from his lips? Do
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Speaker 1: we owe nothing to the long vigil of a valiant race,
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Speaker 1: the long ba by which they have testified against the
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Speaker 1: venomous beauty of the vine ours is an age when
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Speaker 1: men come more and more to see that the creeds
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Speaker 1: hold treasures for each other, that each religion has a
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Speaker 1: secret for its neighbor, that faith unto faith uttereth speech,
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Speaker 1: a church unto church showeth knowledge. If it be true.
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Speaker 1: And I claim again the indulgence of omen Pasha, when
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Speaker 1: I say, I think it is true that we of
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Speaker 1: the West have brought some light to Islam in the
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Speaker 1: matter of the preciousness of peace and of civil order,
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Speaker 1: May we not say that Islam in answer shall give
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Speaker 1: us peace in a thousand homes and encourage us to
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Speaker 1: cut down that curse that has done so much to
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Speaker 1: thwart and madden the virtues of Western Christendom. Already, in
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Speaker 1: my own country, the orgies that made horrible the knights
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Speaker 1: of the noblest families are no more. Already the legislature
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Speaker 1: takes more and more sweeping action to deliver the populace
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Speaker 1: from the bondage of the all destroying drug. Surely the
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Speaker 1: prophet of Mecca is reaping his harvest. The session of
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Speaker 1: the disputed vineyards to the greatest of his champions is,
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Speaker 1: of all acts, the most appropriate to this day to
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Speaker 1: this happy day that may yet deliver the East from
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Speaker 1: the curse of war and the West from the curse
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Speaker 1: of wine. The gallant prince who meets us here at
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Speaker 1: last to offer an olive branch even more glorious than
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Speaker 1: his sword, may well have our sympathy if he himself
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Speaker 1: views the session with some sentimental regret. But I have
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Speaker 1: little doubt that he also will live to rejoice in
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Speaker 1: it at last. And I would remind you that it
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Speaker 1: is not divine alone that has been the sign of
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Speaker 1: the glory of the South. There is another sacred tree,
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Speaker 1: unstained by loose and violent memories, guiltless of the blood
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Speaker 1: of Pentheus or of Orpheus, and the broken lyre. We
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Speaker 1: shall pass from this place in a little water, as
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Speaker 1: all things pass and perish far called our navies melt
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Speaker 1: away on June in headlands sinks. The fire and all
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Speaker 1: our pomp of yesterday is one with nineveh and tire.
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Speaker 1: But so long as sun can shine and soil can nourish,
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Speaker 1: happier men and women after us shall look on this
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Speaker 1: lovely islet, and it shall tell its own story. For
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Speaker 1: they shall see these three holy olive trees lifted in
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Speaker 1: everlasting benediction over the humble spot, out of which came
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Speaker 1: the peace of the world. The other two men were
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Speaker 1: staring at Patrick Delroy. His hand had tightened on the tree,
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Speaker 1: and a giant billow of effort went over his broad breast.
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Speaker 1: A small stone jerked itself out of the ground at
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Speaker 1: the foot of the tree, as if it were a
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Speaker 1: grasshopper jumping. And then the coiled roots of the olive
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Speaker 1: tree rose very slowly out of the earth, like the
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Speaker 1: limbs of a dry than lifting itself from sleep. I
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Speaker 1: offer an olive branch, said the King of Ithaca, totteringly,
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Speaker 1: leaning the loose tree, so that its vast shadow, much
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Speaker 1: larger than itself, fell across the whole council and olive
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Speaker 1: branch he gasped, more glorious than my sword, all so heavier.
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Speaker 1: Then he made another effort and tossed it into the
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Speaker 1: sea below. The German, who was no German, had put
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Speaker 1: up his arm in apprehension when the shadow fell across him.
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Speaker 1: Now he got up and edged away from the table,
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Speaker 1: seeing that the wild Irishman was tearing up the second tree.
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Speaker 1: This one came out more easily, and before he flung
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Speaker 1: it after the first. He stood with it a moment,
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Speaker 1: looking like a man juggling with a tower. Lord Ivywood
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Speaker 1: showed more firmness, but he rose in tremendous remonstrance. Only
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Speaker 1: the Turkish Pasha still sat with blank eyes immovable. Delroy
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Speaker 1: rent out the last tree and hurled it, leaving the
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Speaker 1: island bare. There, said Delroy, when the third and last
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Speaker 1: olive had splashed in the tide. Now I will go.
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Speaker 1: I have seen something to day that is worse than death,
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Speaker 1: and the name of it is peace. Omen Pasha rose
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Speaker 1: and held out his hand. You are right, he said
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Speaker 1: in French, and I hope we meet again in the
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Speaker 1: only life that is a good life. Where are you
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Speaker 1: going now? I am going, said Delroy dreamily, to the
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Speaker 1: old ship. Do you mean, asked the Turk, that you
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Speaker 1: are going back to the warships of the English King. No,
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Speaker 1: answered the other. I am going back to the old
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Speaker 1: ship that is behind the apple trees by Pebblewick, where
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Speaker 1: the yule flows among the trees. I fear I shall
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Speaker 1: never see you. There. After an instant's hesitation, he wrung
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Speaker 1: the red hand of the Great Tyrant and walked to
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Speaker 1: his boat without a glance at the diplomatist's end of
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Speaker 1: chapter two,