"Very well. I'll try again. But remember that you and your father are bound up to us. And if you've played us false I shall see that you're both shot as spies. Remember you won't be the first. There's Shrimpton, up at Gateshead, Paulett at Glasgow, and half a dozen more in prison paying the penalty of all traitors to their country. The British public haven't yet heard of them. But they will before long--depend upon it. The thing was so simple. Germany, before the war, held out the bait for your good King-and-country English to swallow. That you English--or rather a section of you--will always swallow the money-bait we have known ever so long ago." "Mr Rodwell, you needn't tell us more than we know," protested the old fisherman. "You and your people 'ave got the better of us. We know that, to our cost, so don't rub it in." "Ah! as long as you know it, that's all right," laughed Rodwell. "When the invasion comes, as it undoubtedly will, very soon, then you will be looked after all right. Don't you or your son worry at all. Just sit tight, as this house is marked as the house of friends. Germany never betrays a friend--never!" "Then they do intend to come over here?" exclaimed the old fisherman eagerly, his eyes wide-open in wonderment. "Why, of course. All has been arranged long ago," declared the man whom the British public knew as a great patriot. "The big expeditionary force, fully fit and equipped, has been waiting in Hamburg, at Cuxhaven and Bremerhaven, ever since the war began--waiting for the signal to start when the way is left open across the North Sea." "That will never be," declared the younger man decisively. "Perhaps not, if you have dared to tamper with the cable," was Rodwell's hard reply. "I haven't, I assure you," the young man declared. "I haven't touched it." "Well, I don't trust either of you," was Rodwell's reply. "You've had lots of money from us, yet your confounded patriotism towards your effete old country has, I believe, caused you to try and defeat us. You've broken down the cable--perhaps cut the insulation under the water. How do I know?" "I protest, Mr Rodwell, that you should insinuate this!" cried old Tom. "Through all this time we've worked for you, and--" "Because you've been jolly well paid for it," interrupted the other. "What would you have earned by your paltry bit of fish sent into Skegness for cheap holiday-makers to eat?--why, nothing! You've been paid handsomely, so you needn't grumble. If you do, then I have means of at once cutting your supplies off and informing the Intelligence Department at Whitehall. Where would you both be then, I wonder?" "We could give you away also!" growled Ted Small. "You might make charges. But who would believe you if you--a fisherman--declared that Lewin Rodwell was a spy--eh? Try the game if you like--and see!" For a few moments silence fell.