He astonished me by the suddenness of his explosion. "Damn," roared he--"damn and blast! Do you think that I am a brute. Gentle! It was as much as I could do not to kiss the woman, as your little daughter kissed me, and to promise that I would get her husband off somehow. But I should not be a friend to her if I tried to save that man." So Dawson had soft spots in his armour of callousness, and little Jane's instinct was far surer than mine. She had taken to him at sight. When I tried to get from her why, why he had so marked an attraction for her, her replies baffled me more than the central fact. "I love Colonel Dawson. He is a nice man. He has a little girl like me. Her name is Clara. Her birthday is next month. I shall save up my pocket money and send Clara a present. I like Colonel Dawson better even than dear Bailey." I tore my hair, for "Bailey" is a wholly imaginary friend of little Jane, whom I invented one evening at her bedside and who has grown gradually into a personage of clearly defined attributes--like the "Putois" of Anatole France. Dawson and "Bailey"; they are both "nice men" and little Jane's friends; she is sure of them, and I expect that she is right. Children always are right. Dawson, after his outburst, glowered at me for a moment and then laughed. "I am a man," said he, "though you may not think it, and I have my weaknesses. But I never give way to them when they interfere with business. Menteith is in my grip, and he won't get out of it. But he is a poor creature. He handed over the description of the _Rampagious_, saw it hidden in the sardine tin, and was ordered to take the food parcel to the Post Office. The German agent who used him had no notion of risking his own skin. Then followed the discovery and the arrest of the draughtsman who had drawn the plan. Those who had seduced Menteith forbade him to come near them. They slipped away into hiding--which profited them little since all of them were on our string--after threatening Menteith that he would be murdered if he gave himself up to the police, as in his terror he seemed to want to do. When nothing happened for two weeks, the vermin came out of their holes, made up the last parcel, and forced Menteith to go to Carlisle in order to post it. All through he has been the most abject of tools, and received nothing except the four pounds and various small sums spent in drinks." "You have the principal all right?" "Yes, I have him tight. The others associated with him I shall leave free; they will be most useful in future. They don't know that we know them; when they do know, their number will go up, for they will be then of no further use to us. It is a beautiful system, Mr. Copplestone, and you have had the unusual privilege of seeing it at work." "What will your prisoners get by way of punishment?"