“Look 'ere! I say! 'Old on a bit!” and trembling and eagerly unbuttoning himself. He tore open his collar and opened vest and shirt. He plunged into his interior and for an instant it seemed he was plucking forth his liver. Then as he struggled with buttons on his shoulder they perceived this flattened horror was in fact a terribly dirty flannel chest-protector. In another moment Bert, in a state of irregular decolletage, was standing over the table displaying a sheaf of papers. “These!” he gasped. “These are the plans!... You know! Mr. Butteridge--his machine! What died! I was the chap that went off in that balloon!” For some seconds every one was silent. They stared from these papers to Bert's white face and blazing eyes, and back to the papers on the table. Nobody moved. Then the man with the flat voice spoke. “Irony!” he said, with a note of satisfaction. “Real rightdown Irony! When it's too late to think of making 'em any more!” 4 They would all no doubt have been eager to hear Bert's story over again, but it was at this point that Laurier showed his quality. “No, SIR,” he said, and slid from off his table. He impounded the dispersing Butteridge plans with one comprehensive sweep of his arm, rescuing them even from the expository finger-marks of the man with the flat voice, and handed them to Bert. “Put those back,” he said, “where you had 'em. We have a journey before us.” Bert took them. “Whar?” said the man in the straw hat. “Why, sir, we are going to find the President of these States and give these plans over to him. I decline to believe, sir, we are too late.” “Where is the President?” asked Bert weakly in that pause that followed. “Logan,” said Laurier, disregarding that feeble inquiry, “you must help us in this.” It seemed only a matter of a few minutes before Bert and Laurier and the storekeeper were examining a number of bicycles that were stowed in the hinder room of the store. Bert didn't like any of them very much. They had wood rims and an experience of wood rims in the English climate had taught him to hate them. That, however, and one or two other objections to an immediate start were overruled by Laurier. “But where IS the President?” Bert repeated as they stood behind Logan while he pumped up a deflated tyre.