Ordway raised his hand for a hearing and replied to the last question. “The letter was mailed from London, and was sent to other countries. I read the missive to one of the English attachés when it came, and he looked the matter up. This notice has been sent to all the foreign chancelleries, as well as the departments of war and of the navy. It has been done in such a wholesale fashion that I thought you could use it for a column anyway.” “But is it such a fool idea?” asked Reid, one of the older correspondents. “Couldn’t a man build a submarine in which he could run amuck and destroy battleship after battleship, something as old Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo did?” “Not to-day,” said Ordway emphatically. “The new armor of the last years, with its permanent torpedo nets, has stopped all that. The only way you can destroy a modern battleship is by ramming, or by another battleship. The day of the torpedo boat and of the submarine ended almost as it began.” “Well,” said Reid argumentatively, “why couldn’t a man have a battleship? Any one of five hundred men living to-day could afford it.” “No battleship could be built by a private citizen without some nation knowing it and stopping it,” said Ordway seriously. “It takes months, reaching into years, to build one. It takes skilled naval constructors, hundreds of workmen and thousands of tons of material that must be bought in the markets of the world.” “Let’s see the paper it’s written on,” I said. As I held the message, Reid looked over my shoulder and read for a moment. Then, turning, he cried, “Come over here, boys, and look at this a little more closely. That’s old parchment, just like that of some of those papal bulls in the glass cases over in the library.” As he spoke a sudden remembrance flashed across me. “Anybody got a microscope around here?” I asked quickly. “There’s a reading glass,” said Ordway, and opening a drawer he handed one to me. I took the paper to the sunlit window, and began examining it closely with the lens. The rest watched me curiously. At last I shook my head. “No use,” I exclaimed. “I thought I had a clue, but it didn’t pan out. There’s a good story though, without anything more. Here, Ordway,” and I handed back the letter. The other correspondents moved away, seeking fresh fields for copy, but I lingered a moment as John King, my classmate at Columbia and my good friend, stepped forward to bid Ordway good-bye. As I watched his deeply lined, melancholy face and his emaciated form, I wondered if wealth had not come to him too late. “Good-bye, Ordway,” said John. “This is the last you’ll see of me. I’m through with the daily grind at six o’clock to-night.” “I’m sorry to hear that in one way, King,” said Ordway gravely. “I felt last year when you went abroad that you were running down hill and I expected, when I heard you had come into your uncle’s money, that you would pull out. What are you going to do?”