"Too late, Otto. You're in. You can't get out. Do you suppose we are going to let as good and prosperous an agent as you are, with a father above all suspicion, go when we've got him? We've got you, Otto Littman, and you'll do what the High Command orders. Come, come, boy, don't be an ass. And remember where your interests are. This country is doomed if she doesn't soon see where her advantage lies. You're made, whatever happens, for His Majesty never forgets. Your name is on his books." Otto Littman made no reply, but, swinging his car around sharply, drove rapidly back, only slowing up as he approached the dusky turn where his passenger had stepped in. He stepped out now as skillfully, and the car went on. One hearing it pass would have been quite willing to swear that it had not stopped. "Poor fool," Max said to himself. "Thought he could mix in great affairs and pull out at will. That's your American education for you--willing to blurt into anything that's new and promises excitement, pulling out the instant it gets dangerous or pinches their cheap little notions of morality. _Gott in Himmel!_ what does he expect?--that Germany will tolerate such nonsense from any country on the globe? Our time has come and they must learn to understand what valor and power mean in the world." He took out his pipe and lit it and strolled, softly humming, into the rooms he occupied; they made up the second story at Katie Flaherty's. It was a convenient arrangement for a single man who liked to come and go according "to things at the plant." The little frame house was built like many on the South Side, into the hill; its first story opened on one level, its second on another a street above. Max had this second floor to himself now that Mikey had flown. He had said to Mrs. Flaherty that he'd be glad to take both rooms, his books and papers having outgrown the one. He had made it very pleasant and convenient--wonderfully convenient for a gentleman who occasionally had late callers and preferred they should not be seen coming or going. Poor Otto reached home in a very different state of mind. The exciting game he had been playing for months now with a proud conviction that he was indeed on the inside, an actor in world affairs, a man trusted by great diplomats and certain one day to be recognized as one of those that had helped hold the United States when she was on the verge of losing herself to England--the game had taken a new turn. It was out of his hands. He was no longer the player--he was the puppet. What could he do? Was it true they "had" him?