The Privy Councilor had entered; His Excellency extended him his hand. "You come as I am leaving--that's too bad. You know that there is no one with whom I would rather chat than with you. Which way does the wind blow today in Wilhelmstrasse? Did they sleep well? Did they get out of bed with the right foot or the left first? Nerves faint or firm? Is country air in demand or not? Good Heavens! Don't let me die of unsatisfied curiosity!" His Excellency did not wait for the smiling Privy Councilor to answer, but shook hands again with both gentlemen, and, leaning on the arm of his body-servant, who meanwhile had come in, left the room. "Isn't it wonderful," said the Privy Councilor,--"this prodigious versatility, this marvelous ready wit, this quickness in attack, this security in retreat. A Moltke of guerilla warfare. What an enviable treasure your party has in this man!" "Our party, my dear sir? Pardon me, I really must first stop and think each time that you don't belong to us. Won't you sit down?" "Thank you, no. I haven't a moment to spare, and I can only tell you the most essential part in flying haste. First, in the Department of Commerce they are beside themselves over a just reported vote of the great General Staff on the Harbor matter which, as a colleague has informed me--I myself have not been able to get a look at it--is as much as a veto. The finished report is by a certain Captain von Schönau--but the mind behind it--it is an unheard of thing--is there, right in the War Department, and is, of course, none other than our friend the General. That sets us back again I don't know how far or for how long. I am beside myself, and the more so because I am absolutely at a loss in the face of this obstruction. Good Heavens! A man may have influence and could use this influence if he had to, even against an old friend, but he surely would not do that sort of thing except in the last extremity. Now what is your advice?" "The purity of our cause is not to be clouded by intermingling with such repugnant personalities," replied Giraldi.--"If you think that you must spare an old friend, then there is, as you know, an old feud between the General and myself, and everything which I personally might do against him, or cause to be done, would properly seem to every one to be an act of common revenge--which may God Almighty forbid! If he will, he can have some incident occur which will disarm our enemy, and which doesn't need to be an accident because people call it so." "You mean if he should die?" questioned the Privy Councilor with a shifty look. "I don't mean anything definite at all, and certainly not his death. As far as I am concerned he may live long."