“I wonder if I should write her and explain there was no offense, but that I became so absorbed in something I was doing, to put it plainly, to make trouble for her government, that I quite forgot the time of day. But I am sure Impey made up for my absence. That fellow is a wizard, the way he pulls the wool over people’s eyes. He’s as thick as fleas with the American ambassador--and, by Jove!” Randall stopped his spoken introspection to whistle softly, “even the ambassador’s daughter has been taken in. He has a picturesque part in this show. I believe I’d like to take his end. I am not allowed to see; I only write from notes furnished me, like a blind novelist.” “What’s all that rot you’re talking?” Wells had finished his reading and was regarding Randall, a half smile of amusement on his earnest face. “Do you know, George, you ought to be doing something worth while. This thing,” tapping the manuscript he was reading, “is a gem. How can you do it? The ‘Shimbunshi’ will make a big hit in its morning edition, and just at the time when Japan is entertaining our officers. To-morrow the American captain is to lunch with His Majesty.” Randall heaved a sigh and rose from his chair. “Jim, if I could get out of this thing honorably, I’d do it to-day, but I can’t go back to that little old town in Indiana without money. They’ve got me here solid. Good-bye, Jim; I am going down the street and talk to some of those clean looking American sailors I saw this morning. I am just hungry to hear them talk. You’re such an old musty bookworm that you don’t know what it is to pine for the latest slang from little old New York.” After his companion had gone, James Wells sat silent at his desk. His mind was reviewing the last few years of his life, conjured out of the almost forgotten past by Randall’s boyish outburst.