He had not freed his hand from the brown leather satchel to remove his hat when he had mopped his perspiring forehead, with a big cambric handkerchief scented with the _très persistent_ perfume that always clung about his clothes. Nor did he relinquish it to help himself to a cigar, but opened the gold case containing the weeds with the hand that drew it from his pocket, extracted a cigar with his teeth, and returned the case to his pocket; then produced a matchbox, opened it in the same way, picked out a match, shut the box, and struck the match upon it, saying to Bawne, as he blew out the first mouthful of smoke: "What do you think of that, my fine fellow? Should I not make a famous one-handed man?" But Bawne’s suffrages remained unwon, although the dexterity of the thing had secretly pleased him. He remained doggedly silent, scowling with his reddish-fair brows, thrusting out his chin. "Should I not? Tell me!" von Herrnung persisted. "Or is it that British boys are cowards and afraid to answer when they are spoken to?" "I am not afraid—of anything or anybody!" Bawne reddened and looked the taunting big man between the eyes, squarely. The look added—_And least of all of anybody like you_! He went on: "But I think it takes more than—that kind of being clever—to make a famous man." "_Nicht so schlimm!_" Von Herrnung nodded. "But all the same these little tricks are worth knowing. You might be bound with ropes to a post, or tree, or waggon by the enemy, and if he happened to have left your matches on you—and you could get one hand free—there is no knot man could tie that I could not wriggle myself out of!—you might burn the rope and get away! I did that once when I was a gunner-boy of seventeen in South Africa——" Von Herrnung stopped short. Bawne asked simply, and with the same straight look between the eyes: "Did you fight with the Boers against us in the War?" Von Herrnung did not seem to have heard. He had caught the drift of a sentence spoken by Sherbrand, who was answering to a question of the Chief Scout. "Oh yes! I live here—have quarters over Mrs. Dunlett’s restaurant—you could communicate with me practically at any time. We’ve the ’phone and a private telegraph-office, and the wireless—under the usual licence from the Postmaster-General." He pointed towards the well-known tall posts with the short cross-pieces, china insulators and lines of thick wire, standing beside the telegraph-cabin, over the roof of which straddled the wireless installation’s tall, latticed steel mast. "We find it useful for business as well as instructional purposes," he went on. "Macrombie—the man in charge—is a one-time Royal Navy Petty Officer Telegraphist and a first-class operator." Sherbrand’s mouth twisted a little at the corners as he added: "About twenty-four days out of thirty, let us say!" The quick rejoinder came: