"The half that matters--begging my absent wife's pardon. I know all about that, you see. You started me off thinking them over by that ward notion of yours. It didn't take me long. It was pretty transparent. So transparent that my opinion of the intelligence of my fellow-townsfolk has considerably lowered. But we live in unbalanced times. I guess it's women at the bottom of this. Women got on to it first, and the others caught the idea as they'd catch scarlet fever. It's a kind of scarlet fever, this spy scare that's about. Mind you, I admit the germs are certainly present among us." And the lawyer smiled. He thought he saw he had made a little joke in that last remark. Mr. Twist was not in the condition to see jokes, and didn't smile. "Do you mean to say those children--" he began. "They're not regarded as children by any one except you." "Well, if they're not," said Mr. Twist, remembering the grass by the wayside in the lane and what he had so recently met in it, "I guess I'd best be making tracks. But I know better. And so would you if you'd seen them on the boat. Why, twelve was putting their age too high on that boat." "No doubt. No doubt. Then all I can say is they've matured pretty considerably since. Now do you really want me to tell you what is being believed?" "Of course. It's what I've come for." "You mayn't find it precisely exhilarating, Mr. Twist." "Go ahead." "What Acapulco says--and Los Angeles, I'm told, too, and probably by this time the whole coast--is that you threw over your widowed mother, of whom you're the only son, and came off here with two German girls who got hold of you on the boat--now, Mr. Twist, don't interrupt--on the boat crossing from England, that England had turned them out as undesirable aliens--quite so, Mr. Twist, but let me finish--that they're in the pay of the German Government--no doubt, no doubt, Mr. Twist--and that you're their cat's-paw. It is known that the inn each afternoon has been crowded with Germans, among them Germans already suspected, I can't say how rightly or how wrongly, of spying, and that these people are so familiar with the Miss von Twinklers as to warrant the belief in a complete secret understanding." For a moment Mr. Twist continued both his silence and his stare. Then he took off his spectacles and wiped them. His hand shook. The lawyer was startled. Was there going to be emotion? One never knew with that sort of lips. "You're not--" he began. Then he saw that Mr. Twist was trying not to laugh. "I'm glad you take it that way," he said, relieved but surprised. "It's so darned funny," said Mr. Twist, endeavouring to compose his features. "To anybody who knows those twins it's so darned funny. Cat's-paw. Yes--rather feel that myself. Cat's-paw. That does seem a bit of a bull's eye--" And for a second or two his features flatly refused to compose. The lawyer watched him. "Yes," he said. "Yes. But the effect of these beliefs may be awkward."