“Now will you tell me,” said Dick quietly, “how you became a rich man? In the latter days of the war you arrived in this country on a cattle-boat—with about twenty dollars in your pocket. You told Elk you had arrived by that method, and you spoke the truth. I’ve been almost as much interested in you as you have been in the Frogs,” he said with a half-smile, “and I have been putting through a few inquiries. You came to England 1917 and deserted your ship. In May, 1917, you negotiated for the hire of an old tumbledown shack near Eastleigh, Hampshire. There you lived, patching up this crazy cottage and living, so far as I can discover, on the few dollars you brought from the ship. Then suddenly you disappeared, and were next seen in Paris on Christmas Eve of that year. You were conspicuous in rescuing a family that had been buried in a house bombed in an air raid, and your name was taken by the police with the idea of giving you some reward. The French police report is that you were ‘very poorly dressed’—they thought you might be a deserter from the American Army. Yet in February you were staying at the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo, with plenty of money and an extensive wardrobe!” Joshua Broad sat through the recital unmoved, except for the ghost of a smile which showed at the corner of his unshaven mouth. “Surely, Captain, Monte Carlo is the place where a man _would_ have money?” “If he brought it there,” said Dick, and went on: “I’m not suggesting that you are a bad character, or that your money came in any other way than honestly. I merely state the facts that your sudden rise from poverty to riches was, to say the least, remarkable.” “It surely was,” agreed the other; “and, judging by appearances, my change from riches to poverty is as sudden.” Dick looked at the dirty-looking tramp who sat on the other side of the table and laughed silently. “You mean, if it is possible for you to masquerade now, it was possible then, and that, even though you were apparently broke in 1917, you might very well have been a rich man?” “Exactly,” said Mr. Joshua Broad. Gordon was serious again. “I would prefer that you remained your more presentable self,” he said. “I hate telling an American that I may have to deport him, because that sounds as if it is a punishment to return to the United States. But I may find myself with no other alternative.” Joshua Broad rose. “That, Captain Gordon, is too broad for a hint and too kindly for a threat—henceforth, Joshua Broad is a respectable member of society. Maybe I’ll take the Prince of Caux’s house and entertain bims and be a modern Harun al Raschid. I’ve got to meet them somehow.” At the mention of that show house that had cost a king’s ransom to build and a queen’s dowry to furnish, Dick smiled. “It isn’t necessary you should advertise your respectability that way,” he said. But Broad was not smiling. “The only thing I ask is that you do not advise the police to withdraw my permits,” he said.