“Well, now that you are to be my fellow-partner in crime, and Jones is our associate, I will tell you. Do you remember the summer way back in the 90's that you and I spent in Switzerland mountain climbing?” “Yes, perfectly,” said Lawrence, “but that was a long time ago. We were nothing but kids then.” “Do you remember that you, kid-like, insisted upon going over a very flimsy-looking snow bridge, simply because the old guide told us that he had never seen that crevasse bridged before, and that the tradition down in Chamonix was that it had only been bridged once or twice in the memory of man? “And do you remember,” went on Edestone, “that at first he refused to go, saying that if it broke after we got over, there was no possible way of our getting back?” “Yes,” acknowledged Lawrence, “the old ‘chump,’ and I remember that we went over and got back all right, and those guides are talking about it yet.” “Well, do you remember,” continued Edestone, “that when we scrambled up over the next rock ridge we looked into a regular bowl-shaped valley that had the appearance of a crater of an extinct volcano?” “Yes,” said Lawrence. “Well, ‘Specs’ is there in that valley, where perhaps no human being has ever been before. I sent him there for that reason. He has been there for the last two months and a half, unknown to anyone on the face of the earth and thoroughly protected from the storms that sweep over that portion of the French Alps.” “Well, I’ll be damned,” said Lawrence. “Is ‘Specs’ the skipper of that pretty little toy you were showing on the screen?” “No, Captain Lee is the skipper,” laughed Edestone. “Dear old ‘Specs’ is my boss. He is the Admiral.” “Well, for the love of Mike,” exploded Lawrence. “What a swell chance those mortars out there with their long distance telephone attachments will have with that Queen of the Milky Way. You don’t mean to say that he is coming over here with his forty thousand tons and float around up there five thousand feet above the Embassy?” he exclaimed as he looked up at the ceiling with a look of alarm, as if he expected to see it come crushing down on him at any moment. And jumping out of his chair he ran about the room, making the most ridiculous gestures, crying: “Air, I want air!” while Edestone laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks. “But say, Bo,” said Lawrence, “there is nothing to it. What do you suppose those crazy Dutchmen are thinking about? Why I thought that sky pirate belonged to the United States, and was now probably tied to a dock in some mud flat, with a crew of two brass polishers and a Sunday School teacher, while the Virginia creeper and the North Carolina milkweed twined about it to make nests for the Dove of Peace.” “No,” said Edestone, “it is what you have just called it, a Sky Pirate, and I am the buccaneer.” “Did the Emperor know that when he got so gay with you tonight?” asked Lawrence. “No, he does not know that, but he knows everything else.”