The general turned gruffly to greet his visitor. "I have sent for you, Professor," said he, without removing his cigar, "in order that I may fully understand the method by which you say you have ascertained the place of origin of the wireless messages and electrical disturbances referred to in our communications of last week. This may be a serious matter. The accuracy of your information is of vital importance." The professor hesitated in embarrassment, and the general scowled. "Well?" he demanded, biting off the chewed end of his cigar. "Well? This is not a lecture room. Time is short. Out with it." "Your Excellency!" stammered the poor professor, "I--I----The observations are so--inadequate--one cannot determine----" "What?" roared Von Helmuth. "But you said you _had_!" "Only approximately, your Excellency. One cannot be positive, but within a reasonable distance----" He paused. "What do you call a reasonable distance? I supposed your physics was an exact science!" retorted the general. "But the data----" "What do you call a reasonable distance?" bellowed the Imperial Commissioner. "A hundred kilometres!" suddenly shouted the overwrought professor, losing control of himself. "I won't be talked to this way, do you hear? I won't! How can a man think? I'm a member of the faculty of the Imperial University. I've been decorated twice--twice!" "Fiddlesticks!" returned the general, amused in spite of himself. "Don't be absurd. I merely wish you to hurry. Have a cigar?" "Oh, your Excellency!" protested the professor, now both ashamed and frightened. "You must excuse me. The war has shattered my nerves. May I smoke? Thank you." "Sit down. Take your time," said Von Helmuth, looking out and up at a monoplane descending toward the landing in slowly lessening spirals. "You see, your Excellency," explained Von Schwenitz, "the data are fragmentary, but I used three methods, each checking the others." "The first?" shot back the general. The monoplane had landed safely. "I compared the records of all the seismographs that had registered the earthquake wave attendant on the electrical discharges accompanying the great yellow auroras of July. These shocks had been felt all over the globe, and I secured reports from Java, New Guinea, Lima, Tucson, Greenwich, Algeria, and Moscow. These showed the wave had originated somewhere in Eastern Labrador." "Yes, yes. Go on!" ordered the general. "In the second place, the violent magnetic storms produced by the helium aurora appear to have left their mark each time upon the earth in a permanent, if slight, deflection of the compass needle. The earth's normal magnetic field seems to have had superimposed upon it a new field comprised of lines of force nearly parallel to the equator. My computations show that these great circles of magnetism centre at approximately the same point in Labrador as that indicated by the seismographs--about fifty-five degrees north and seventy-five degrees west."