There was Stanley Bessemere back from Ulster once more. As usual he sat behind a huge cigar, retailing amidst roars of laughter to a sympathetic audience his exploits and those of his caracoling chief. The European situation had not overclouded him. "There's going to be a Civil War and Smith and I are going to be in it. We shall walk through the Nationalists like so much paper. They've got no arms; and they've got no guts either." He laughed cheerily. "Bad men. Bad men." The Colonel stood, an accusing figure in the door, and eyed the fair-haired giant with cold resentment. "You know Kuhlmann from the German Embassy is over with your people in Belfast?" he asked. The other waved an airy cigar. "You can take it from me, my dear Colonel, that he's not," he answered. "I'll take nothing of the sort from you," the Colonel answered acridly. "He's there none the less because he's there incognito." The young man winced; and the Colonel withdrew. "Jove!" he said. "I'd just like to know how far these beggars have trafficked in treason with Germany." "Not at all," replied Mr. Trupp. "They've humbugged emselves into believing they're 'running great risks in a great cause,' as they say--or doing the dirty to make a party score, as you and I'd put it. That's all." The Colonel walked home, oppressed. After supper, as he sat with his wife in the loggia, he told her of Ruth's strange secretiveness in the matter of the garage. "There she is!" said Mrs. Lewknor quietly nodding over her work. Ruth, indeed, was strolling slowly along the cliff from the direction of the Meads in the gorgeous evening. Opposite the hostel a track runs down to the beach beneath. At that point she paused as though waiting for somebody; and then disappeared from view. Ten minutes later Mrs. Lewknor spoke again in the same hushed voice. "Here's the other!" The Colonel looked up. Joe was coming rapidly along the cliff from the direction of Beau-nez. He too disappeared down the way Ruth had already taken. The Colonel removed his glasses. "I shall give em a quarter of an hour to make emselves quite comfortable," he muttered "and then--" "Spy," said Mrs. Lewknor. A moment later, Anne, the parlour-maid, showed Mr. Alfred Caspar on to the loggia. The face of the Manager of Caspar's Syndicate was very long. Alf, cherishing the simple faith that the Colonel because he had been a soldier must be in the secrets certainly of the War Office and possibly of the Government, had come to ask what he thought of the European situation. The Colonel was not reassuring, but he refused to commit himself. Alf turned away almost sullenly. "See, it matters to me," he said. "I start Bank Holiday. Don't want no wars interfering with my Syndicate." "It matters to us all a bit," replied the Colonel.