When I left the dock I went straight to a restaurant, for I was faint as well as miserable. But my cup of coffee choked me and the rolls and eggs were more than I could face. Rising impatiently, I went out. Was any one more wretched than I that morning and could any one nourish a more bitter grievance? As I strode towards my lodgings I chewed the cud of my disappointment till my wrongs loomed up like mountains and I was seized by a spirit of revenge. Should I let such an interference as I had received go unpunished? No, if the wretch who had detained me was not used to punishment he should receive a specimen of it now and from a man who was no longer a prisoner, and who once aroused did not easily forego his purposes. Turning aside from my former destination, I went immediately to a police-station and when I had entered my complaint was astonished to see that all the officials had grouped about me and were listening to my words with the most startled interest. "Was the man who came for you a German?" one asked. I said "Yes." "And the man who stood guardian over you and entertained you with wine and cigars, was not he a German too?" I nodded acquiescence and they at once began to whisper together; then one of them advanced to me and said: "You have not been home, I understand; you had better come." Astonished by his manner I endeavored to inquire what he meant, but he drew me away, and not till we were within a stone's throw of my office did he say, "You must prepare yourself for a shock. The impertinences you suffered from last night were unpleasant no doubt, but if you had been allowed to return home, you might not now be deploring them in comparative peace and safety." "What do you mean?" "That your partner was not as fortunate as yourself. Look up at the house; what do you see there?" A crowd was what I saw first, but he made me look higher, and then I perceived that the windows of my room, of our room, were shattered and blackened and that part of the casement of one had been blown out. "A fire!" I shrieked. "Poor Richter was smoking----" "No, he was not smoking. He had no time for a smoke. An infernal machine burst in that room last night and your friend was its wretched victim."