"I meant no harm," he muttered, numb, and crestfallen as a dried pear. *CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR* *I* Ten days later. A large sitting room in exclusive lodgings near Picadilly, London. Two men in an animated conversation. The decidedly younger one, breezy and Times Squarish, and yet politely deferential to the experience of his senior; the latter, a tall, wiry man immaculately dressed in a suit of neutral coloring. The young man was saying: "Yes, Mr. Pryor, he’s slowly warming to me. Slowly. I tell you, sir, a Japanese naval attache can give points to an icicle. Still, I think he’s biting!" "Did you tell him that the U.S. Army of Occupation had sent machine guns to the number of three thousand two hundred and fifty to the Ukraine?" "No. I followed your instructions to the dot. I merely said I was in a position to tell him the number." "Well?" "He replied, with a sour smile, that he was in the same position as regards me. I ventured to question the correctness of his information. He volunteered the figure." "And the figure he gave?" "Was three thousand two hundred and fifty." Mark Pryor’s rather long neck collapsed telescopically down his high, straight collar. "And you think he’s biting!" he said, turning his roving gray eyes quizzically on his companion. "Take care, Smilo, my boy, or he’ll have _you_ ’biting’ before you know it. And that will be a case of the biter bit." "Have your little joke at the expense of the service, Mr. Pryor," said young Smilo, with an air of tactfully conveying a rebuke. "But is a mere Jap likely to come it over a real American like you or me? I _don’t_ think." "Let’s waive discussion on a point so personal. In temperament and disposition we are exact opposites. That’s why we get on so well together, and why I’m going to take you into my confidence." "Mr. Pryor, you mustn’t think—" "I know it, my boy, I know it. I must never think, and I ought never to take you into my confidence, either. Both acts are first-class infractions of the rules of the military secret service. I admit it shouldn’t be done. It might result in important discoveries. It might even lead to the disentangling of one of the mysteries we’re working on. Think of it! There’d be only one thousand two hundred and fifty-six mysteries left." Young Smilo laughed good naturedly (to cheer the old boy up!). "None the less," continued Pryor, gravely, "I shall now violate another inviolable rule. I shall give you four pieces of information. The first: Running across Hutchins Burley in Paris twelve days ago, I told him the number of machine guns sent by us to the Ukraine." "So that was the dodge. I see! You told him the exact number?"