"These gentlemen," he said, "will meet at Schlangenbad about the middle of this month. You know the place, in the Taunus Hills--one of the Emperor's hunting lodges. I suggest that you get down there to-morrow and have everything ready. You thoroughly know what is required of you, Doctor?" On my assenting I was dismissed. I lost no time in getting home to my quarters and into comfortable togs. This mission needed some thinking out. And after I told my Basuto boy to pack my bag, I glanced again at the list von Wedel had given me. Haldane, Lord Chancellor of England, persona grata with the Kaiser--in fact, a personal friend. Churchill, First Lord of the British Admiralty. Waechter, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs and, despite court opposition, the trusted man of the Kaiser. Tirpitz and von Heeringen, chiefs of the German navy and army staffs, the latter a second Moltke. When I came to von Auffenberg's name I whistled. Von Auffenberg was Minister of War and the right-hand man of the Chancellor of the Austrian Empire. Thus three great powers were represented. Six men of this eminence, the brains and force of three nations, to meet in secret in a little obscure hunting lodge in the forest! It portended darkly for France; but how darkly I could not then conjecture. It interested me tremendously, but I consoled myself that I would probably know all when the party gathered in that secluded hunting lodge. According to instructions, I presented myself early next morning at the residence of Herr von Kinderlen-Waechter. It was in the Thiergartenstrasse. Without delay I was shown into his Excellency's room. He was seated at his desk, and while we exchanged a few perfunctory words I permitted myself a moment's brief conjecture. Judging from appearances, you would never have taken this portly, rubicund, iron-gray, bushy-browed gentleman for a statesman. But a statesman he was for all that, and the Emperor and Germany miss him sorely. I would have taken him for a Boer Dopper or an English yeoman. This suggestion was supported by his atrocious taste in fancy waistcoats. The one he had on still sticks in my memory. It was a lurid peach-blossom creation, spotted with green. But once his steel-gray, deerhound eyes looked you up and down you forgot all about the fancy waistcoat and got right down to business. I told his Excellency I had come for his personal instructions. Besides telling me to "halt my maul" (a German military expression literally meaning to keep your mouth shut, but implying the need for utmost secrecy) he gave me certain general instructions. But from them I could gain no idea of just what was going to happen. I could only guess. How big was the gathering storm he never even hinted. Remembering von Wedel's suggestion about the hunting party, I procured some guns and reached the station in time to catch the 12.30 express for Schlangenbad.