"It is true," was the proud reply. "The German Navy has been a long time proving itself. It has done so now. To-day every German citizen is the proudest creature breathing. He knew before that his armies were invincible. He knows now that his fleet is destined to make his country the mistress of the seas. England's day is over. Her ships were badly handled and foolishly flung into battle. She has lost many of her finest units. Her Navy is to-day a crippled and maimed force. The German fleet is out in the North Sea, waiting for an enemy who has disappeared." "It is inconceivable," Pamela gasped. "I do not ask you to believe my word," Fischer exclaimed. "Look!" As though the flood gates had been suddenly opened, the stream of patient waiters broke away from the newspaper building below. Like little fireflies, the motor-bicycles were tearing down the different thoroughfares. Boys like ants, with their burden of news sheets, were running in every direction. Motor-trucks had started on their furious race. Even the distant echoes of their cries came faintly up. Fischer called a messenger and sent him for a paper. "I do not know what report you will see," he said, "but from whatever source it comes it will confirm my story. The news is too great and sweeping to be contradicted or ignored." "If it's true," Van Teyl muttered, "you've made a fortune in my office to-day. It looks like it, too. There was something wrong with Anglo-French beside your selling for the last hour this afternoon. I couldn't get buyers to listen for a moment." "Yes, I shall have made a great deal of money," Fischer admitted, "money which I shall value because it comes magnificently, but I hope that this victory may help me to win other things." He looked fixedly at Pamela, and she moved uneasily in her chair. Almost unconsciously the man himself seemed somehow associated with his cause, to be assuming a larger and more tolerant place in her thoughts. Perhaps there was some measure of greatness about him after all. The strain of waiting for the papers became almost intolerable. At last the boy reappeared. The great black headlines were stretched out before her. She felt the envelopment of Fischer's triumph. The words were there in solid type, and the paper itself was one of the most reliable. GREAT NAVAL BATTLE IN THE NORTH SEA. BRITISH ADMIRALTY ADMITS SERIOUS LOSSES. "QUEEN MARY," "INDEFATIGABLE," AND MANY FINE SHIPS LOST. Pamela looked up from the sheet. "It is too wonderful," she whispered, with a note of awe in her tone. "I don't think that any one ever expected this. We all believed in the British Navy." "There is nothing," Fischer declared, "that England can do which Germany cannot do better." "And America best of all," Pamela said. Fischer bowed. "That is one comparison which will never now be made," he declared, "for from to-night Germany and America will draw nearer together. The bubble of British naval omnipotence is pricked."