would have been a relief,--so Seaton felt, though accustomed to deep silence. "Better get through with this at once"--he said, aloud--"Now that a safe place is prepared." Here he looked at his watch. "In a couple of hours they will be sending up from the Plaza to know if I want anything--Irish Jake or Manilla will be coming on some trivial matter--I'd better take the opportunity of complete secrecy while I can." For the next few minutes or so he hesitated. With the sudden fancy that he had forgotten something, he turned out his pockets, looking for he scarcely knew what. The contents were mixed and various, and among them was a crumpled letter which he had received some days since from Sam Gwent. He smoothed it out carefully and re-read it, especially one passage-- "I think the States will never get involved in another war, but I am fairly sure Germany will. If she joins up with Russia look out for squalls. In your old country, which appears to be peopled by madmen, there's a writing chap who spent a fortnight in Russia, not long enough to know the ins and outs of a village, yet assuming to know everything about the biggest territory in Europe, and the press is puffing up his ignorance as if it were wisdom. Germany has her finger on the spot--so perhaps your stuff will come in useful. But don't forget that if you make up your mind to use it you will ruin America, commercially speaking. And many other countries besides. So think it well over,--more than a hundred times! Lydia Herbert, whom perhaps you remember, and perhaps you don't, has caught her 'ancient mariner'--that is to say, her millionaire,--and all fashionable New York is going to the wedding, including yours truly. I had expected Morgana Royal to grace the function, but I hear she is quite engrossed with the decoration and furnishing of her Sicilian palace, as well as with her advising artist, a very good-looking Marquis or Marchese as he is called. It is also whispered that she has invented a wonderful air-ship which has no engines, and creates its own motive power as it goes! Sounds rather tall talk!--but this is an age of wonders and we never know what next. There is a new Light Ray just out which prospects for gold, oil and all ores and minerals, and finds them in a fifty-mile circuit--so probably nobody need be poor for the future. When we've all got most things we want, and there's nothing left to work for, I wonder what the world will be worth!" Seaton left off reading and thrust the letter again in his pocket. "What will the world be worth?" he soliloquised--"Why, nothing!"