"Oh, no!" said Armitage sarcastically. "Oh, I don't mean the loss to yourself and the Government, I mean the politics of it. Jack, every nation knows about that torpedo. You know the _attaches_ that have been snooping round here on one pretence or another since you have been working. Japan knows about it; you know her situation with Russia. Russia gets your torpedo--what's Japan going to do? What will England say? How can the Government prove it was stolen? Oh, we can say so but we 'd say so anyway, would n't we? How will you look?" Thornton threw up his hands and confronted Armitage. "I tell you, Jack, it's a nasty mess. Your status in the matter will size up about like a pin point at Washington. You 've got to catch Yeasky, somehow." "Fine, bright boy!" Armitage twisted a newspaper in his hands, broke it, and tossed the two ends away. "I don't want Yeasky, I tell you. You 're off the track. I want Koltsoff. The secret service fellows can go after Yeasky. It's perfectly certain he turned that control over to Koltsoff, after, if not before, I held him up. He knew he was suspected. Anyway, the Russian was undoubtedly here to receive it. Why else would he be here?" "Anne Wellington, so the _Saunterer_ says." Armitage turned quickly upon his friend and brother officer. "Anne, nothing!" he fairly snarled. "I remember about Koltsoff now. Worcester was once _attache_ at St. Petersburg and told me all about him last summer. He 's just a plain, ordinary, piking crook. But he 's up against the wrong kind of diplomacy this time. I 'll get him before he leaves Newport and choke that magnetic control out of him. Come over to the _D'Estang_ a minute, Joe; I want to show you something. . . . Well, Mr. Jackson, cleaned out? I thought so. Thank you, I am going to be away for a few days. Don't let anything be touched, please. Let the work stop until I return. Come on, Joe." In his cabin on the _D'Estang_, Armitage pointed to several more or less disreputable garments lying on his berth. "Say," he said, "would a candidate for physical instructor for the Wellington boys wear such clothes?" Thornton looked hard at his friend for a minute and then his face broadened into a huge smile of understanding. "Not if he wanted the job," he said. "You 'll make more of a hit as you are." "All right, and now, Joe, go into the yeoman's office like a good chap, pick out a time-stained sheet of paper and typewrite a letter, signing your name as captain of the 19-- football eleven at Annapolis, saying that the bearer, Jack--Jack--who?" "McCall," suggested Thornton. "Yes, McCall--saying that Jack McCall had given great satisfaction as trainer for the eleven and was honest and God-fearing; you know how to do it." "All right," said Thornton, starting for the door. He paused in the corridor. "Say, Jack, do you know you're taking all this mighty light?" He frowned. "This is serious." Armitage frowned too.