This silence was dramatically broken in the smoking-room of the Union League Club, San Francisco, on the evening when the news came that the Kaiser had sent the gunboat ‘Panther’ to Agadir as a trump card for the game he was playing for the control of Morocco. Von K---- was frowning over his paper when an American friend came up, clapped him on the shoulder, and exclaimed: ‘The Baron is in close touch with the Kaiser; perhaps he can tell us what “The Mailed Fist” is punching at in North Africa.’ What von K---- said regarding the allegation that he was in close touch with the Kaiser was not stated in words that even the San Francisco papers (whose ‘news vultures’ had pounced upon the incident within an hour) felt able to report verbatim the following morning, but his ‘Mailed Fist’ _mot_ went from California to Maine in the next twelve hours, and even to-day is still freely quoted whenever the question of the War Lord’s mentality is the subject of discussion. ‘Mailed vist!’ snorted the Baron, whose English has never climbed entirely out of his throat; ‘Vell, berhabst dey haas mailed his vist, but, by Gott, dey haas neffer mailed his prain.’ Then, as an afterthought, ‘Or maype, if dey haas mailed his prain, der bostmann haas forgodt it to deliffer.’ I saw Baron von K---- in San Francisco--encountered him beaming over the sculptures in the Italian Building at the Panama-Pacific Exposition--but was unable to draw him into any discussion of Germany and the war. He did, however, tell me that his German estates were for sale, that he never expected to return there again, and that--the day after Belgium was invaded--he had applied for his first papers of American citizenship. _THE TUTOR’S STORY._[1] BY THE LATE CHARLES KINGSLEY, REVISED AND COMPLETED BY HIS DAUGHTER, LUCAS MALET. CHAPTER XXX. That was the first of many days--for by both Braithwaite’s and Nellie’s request I stayed on at Westrea until nearly the end of the vacation--of sweet but very searching experience. If I played with fire it was a purifying fire surely, burning away the baser metal and leaving whatever of gold might be in me free of dross.