Ever since the historic war between the Balkan allies and
the Turks, in 1912 and 1913, there had been mutterings, and now the
situation had come to be admittedly precarious. Mr. Blithers was in a
position to know that the little principality over which the young
man reigned was bound to be drawn into the cataclysm, not as a
belligerent or an ally, but in the matter of a loan that
inconveniently expired within the year and which would hardly be
renewed by Russia with the prospect of vast expenditures of war
threatening her treasury. The loan undoubtedly would be called and
Graustark was not in a position to pay out of her own slender
resources, two years of famine having fallen upon the people at a
time when prosperity was most to be desired.
He was in touch with the great financial movements in all the world's
capitals, and he knew that retrenchment was the watchword. It would
be no easy matter for the little principality to negotiate a loan at
this particular time, nor was there even a slender chance that Russia
would be benevolently disposed toward her debtors, no matter how
small their obligations.
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