"Don't go to bed," called James from the head of the stairs. "I want to have a yarn with you in a minute. Light the gas in the dining-room." Five minutes later he reappeared carrying a tray with cold beef, bread, and a jug of beer upon it. Uncle Bill stood in front of the dead ashes of his hearth considering his nephew through his eyeglass. "I hope you made--er--Fritz comfortable? You look as if you had been doing a forced march. Nerves better?" James set down his empty glass with a sigh and wiped his mouth. "As comfortable as he deserves to be. He's a spy, Uncle Bill. I caught him supplying petrol to a German submarine." "Really?" said Uncle Bill, without enthusiasm. "That brandy cost me 180s. a dozen. Wouldn't he be better in a police station? Have you informed the Admiralty?" "I venerate the police," replied James flippantly, "and the Admiralty are as a father and mother to me; but I want to keep this absolutely quiet for a few days--anyhow, till after Friday. I couldn't turn Fritz over to a policeman without attracting a certain amount of attention. Anyhow, it would leak out if I did. I've walked eighteen miles already since midnight, and it's another fifty-nine to the Admiralty from here. Besides, unless I disguise Fritz as a performing bear, people would want to know why I was leading him about on a rope's end----" "Start at the beginning," interrupted Uncle Bill wearily, "and explain, avoiding all unnecessary detail." So James, between mouthfuls, gave a brief resume of the night's adventure, while Sir William Thorogood, Professor of Chemistry and Adviser to the Admiralty on Submarine Explosives, stood and shivered on the hearthrug. "And it just shows," concluded his nephew, "what a three-hours' swim in the North Sea does for a chap's morals." He eyed his Uncle Bill solemnly. "I even chucked the fellow's seamanship in his teeth!" Sir William polished his eyeglass with a silk handkerchief and replaced it with care. "_Did_ you!" he said. 4 A squat tub of a boat, her stern piled high with wicker crab-pots, came round the northern headland and entered the little bay. The elderly fisherman who was rowing rested on his oars and sat contemplating the crab-pots in the stem. A younger man, clad in a jersey and sea boots, was busy coiling down something in the bows. "How about this spot," he said presently, looking up over his shoulder, "for the first one?" The rower fumbled about inside his tattered jacket, produced something that glistened in the sunlight, and screwed it into his eye. "Uncle Bill!" protested the younger fisherman, "do unship that thing. If there _is_ anyone watching us, it will give the whole show away."