"At noon to-day the bear movement, heretofore regarded as a natural reaction following an over-advancement, and hence of purely academic interest, suddenly assumed such proportions as to make the outlook one of anxiety. It seems significant that before the Wall Street opening this morning the London market responded to an attack of the same nature. In an era of industrial prosperity and general peace such a phenomenon is alarming, and a serious decline is anticipated in some quarters. The short sales which were such a factor in to-day's market were so distributed that it seems impossible to trace them to any single interest." Bersonin's face expressed nothing. He folded the crackling sheet and laid it to one side. Most of the comment about him turned on the departure of the Squadron. Since the royal death, whose announcement had so abruptly ended the festivities, the black battle-ships had lain motionless in the bay. The appointment of a regent of confessedly more positive policy had given rise to many speculations, and the apostles of calamity had seized the opportunity to sow the seeds of disquiet. The great world, however, had as yet given little thought to their prognostications. The bourses had gone higher and higher. Only in diplomatic circles, where the mercury is habitually unquiet, had there been perceptible effect. To-day the comment showed a sub-tone of relief. The doctor ate little. He left the _petit verre_ with his coffee untouched, signed his _chit_ and went down to his automobile. "Bersonin must be under the weather," one of the men at another table observed, as he passed them. "He looks like a putty image." "Curious chap," remarked the other. "Got a lot in his head, no doubt. Some queer stories afloat about him, but I don't suppose there's anything in them." The other lit his cigar reflectively. "I can't somehow 'go' him, myself," he said. Bersonin was whirled to his house, and presently was in his laboratory with its glass shelves, its books and its wall-safe. A cheerful fire burned in the grate against the dampness. He began to walk restlessly up and down the floor. To-day his government contract expired and Japan had not asked its renewal. He thought of this with a sudden recrudescence of the hatred he had nurtured for the Empire. This had been based on fancied slights, on his failure to receive a decoration, on the surveillance he had lately imagined had been kept on his movements. Well, to-morrow would repay all with interest! There was no hitch in the plan which chance had aided so well. The Roost was the one house on the Yokohama Bluff that could have served his purpose, planted on the cliff-edge and in line with the anchorage. And it had happened to be in the hands of this weak fool for his cat's-paw!