The sun was but just thrusting a crimson arc into view in the transfigured east when he left the house--on a hard run; for part at least of the way must be covered afoot, and the journey was long--but by four o'clock it was almost as bright as midday, and the possibility of securing a conveyance for the rest of the distance was considerably increased by that fact; by five, he _had_ secured one, and by seven he was in the Portsmouth Road at Guildford munching the sandwiches Dollops had thoughtfully slipped into his pocket and keeping a sharp lookout for the coming of the red limousine. It swung up over the rise of the road and came panting toward him at a nerve-racking pace while it still lacked ten minutes of being the appointed half-hour, and so wild was the speed at which Lennard, in his furious interest, was making it travel that Cleek could think of nothing to which to liken it but a red streak whizzing across a background of leaf-green with splatters of mud flying about it and an owl-eyed demon for pilot. It pulled up with a jerk when it came abreast of him, but so great was Lennard's excitement, so deep seated his patriotic interest in the business he had in hand, he seemed to begrudge even the half-minute it took to get his man aboard; and before you could have turned around twice the car was rocketing on again at a demon's pace. "Gad! but he's full of it, the patriotic beggar!" said Cleek with a laugh, as he found himself deposited in Narkom's lap instead of on the seat beside him, so sudden was the car's start the instant he was inside. "It might give our German friends pause, don't you think, Mr. Narkom, if they could get an insight into the spirit of the race as a fighting unit?" "It'll give 'em hell if they run up against it--make no blooming error about that!" rapped out the superintendent too "hot in the choler" to be choice of words. "It's a nasty little handful to fall foul of when its temper is up; and this damned spy business, done behind a mask of friendship in times of peace----Look here, Cleek! If it comes to the point, just give me a gun with the rest. I'll show the Government that I can lick something beside insurance stamps for my country's good--by James, yes!" "Just so," said Cleek, with one of his curious, crooked smiles. He was used to these little patriotic outbursts on the part of Mr. Narkom whenever the German bogey was dragged out by the Press. "But let us hope it will not come to that. It would be an embarrassment of riches so far as our friends the editors are concerned, don't you think, to have two wars on their hands at the same time? And I see by papers that the long-threatened Mauravanian revolution has broken out at last. In short, that our good friend Count Irma has made his escape from Sulberga, put himself at the head of the Insurgents, and is organizing a march on the capital----"