“What is that? Oh yes; he’s an American. His name? How should I remember! I wasn’t interested either in him, or what he had to say. He pretends to have discovered some new agency or force, don’t you know, and tries to prove by a lot of double-exposed photographs that he has broken down the fundamental laws of physics, neutralizing the force of gravity, or annihilating space by the polarization of light, or some such rot. “Do not kick him out. He has letters not only from his Government, but from some of its most prominent men whom it would be unwise to offend at this time. Just listen to his twaddle about universal peace and that sort of thing, and then pass him on to Graves with a quiet warning such as I have given you.” Meanwhile Edestone, having taken leave of Colonel Wyatt, was making his way out of the building, when he found himself accosted in the dimly lighted corridor by a man in civilian clothes whom he recognized as a New York acquaintance of several years’ standing. “Well, look who’s here!” he greeted Edestone lustily as he extended his hand. “What brings you into the very den of the lion? Is it that, like myself, you are helping dear old England get arms and ammunition with which to lick the barbarians on the Rhine?” Glancing around cautiously he lowered his voice. “Make her pay well for them, my boy; she would not hesitate to turn them on us, if we got in her way.” Edestone laughingly disclaimed any interest in army contracts, but at the same time avoided divulging the actual mission upon which he was engaged. There was something in his companion’s manner that put him rather on his guard; he remembered smoking after dinner not more than three or four months before in the house of one of the most prominent German bankers in New York, and listening to this man, who had expressed himself in a way that might have suggested somewhat pro-German sympathies. Edestone had at the time attributed this to a consideration for their host and to the fact that the German Ambassador was present; but he recalled that, although the speaker was most violent in his protestations of neutrality, someone had suggested at the time that he was of a German family, his father having been born in Hesse-Darmstadt. He was a man of wealth, with establishments in New York and Newport, at both of which places Edestone had been entertained. His loud and hearty manner stamped him as a typical American, but his large frame, handsome face, and military bearing showed his Teutonic origin. “You surprise me Rebener.” Edestone’s eyes twinkled slightly at these recollections. “I should have supposed, if you had anything of the kind to sell, that it would be to your friend, Count Bernstoff. However,” he laid his hand on the other’s arm, “it’s an agreeable surprise to run across a fellow-countryman, no matter what the cause. Are you going my way?” “No,” Rebener told him, he had an appointment on hand with one of the bureau chiefs in the Ordnance Department.