"If that is your idea," Lutchester remarked suavely, "why buy now? Why not wait till next week? Come," he went on, "I will have a little flutter with you, if you like, Fischer. I will bet you five thousand dollars, and Van Teyl here shall hold the stakes, that a week hence to-day Anglo-French stand higher than they do at this moment." Fischer hesitated. Then he turned away. "I am not a sportsman, Mr. Lutchester," he said. Lutchester brushed away a little dust from his coat sleeve. "No," he murmured, "I agree with you. Good morning!" Lutchester walked out into the sun-baked streets, and with his absence Fischer abandoned his almost unnatural calm. He strode up and down the room, fuming with rage. At every fresh click of the tape machine, he snatched at the printed slip eagerly and threw it away with an oath. No one took any notice of him. Van Teyl rushed in and out, telephones clanged, perspiring clerks dashed in with copies of contracts to add to the small pile upon the desk. There came a quiet moment presently. Van Teyl wiped the perspiration from his forehead and drank a tumblerful of water. "Fischer," he asked, "what made you go into this so big? You must have known there was always the risk of your wireless report beating it up a little too tall." "It wasn't our report at all that I went by," Fischer confessed gloomily. "It was the English Admiralty announcement that did it. Can you conceive," he went on, striking the table with his fist, "any nation at war, with a grain of common sense or an ounce of self-respect, issuing a statement like that?--an apology for a defeat which, damn it all, never happened! Say the thing was a drawn battle, which is about what it really was. It didn't suit the Germans to fight it to a finish. They'd everything to lose and little to gain. So in effect they left the Britishers there and passed back behind their own minefield. So far as regards reports, that was victory enough for any one except those muddle-headed civilians at Whitehall. They deceived the world with that infernal bulletin, and incidentally me. It was on that statement I gave you my orders, not on ours." "It's a damned unfortunate business!" Van Teyl sighed. "You're only half way out yet, and it's cost you nearly three hundred thousand." A dull spot of purple colour burned in Fischer's cheeks. His upper lip was drawn in, his appearance for a moment was repulsive. "It isn't the money I mind," he muttered. "It's Lutchester." Van Teyl was discreetly silent. Fischer seemed to read his thoughts. He leaned across the table. "A wonderful fellow, your friend Lutchester," he sneered. "An Admirable Crichton of finance and diplomacy and love-making, eh? But the end isn't just yet. I promise you one thing, James Van Teyl. He isn't going to marry your sister." "I'd a damned sight sooner she married him than you!" Van Teyl blazed out.