"_You remember him at Heidelberg, I dare say. I brought him back once for holiday. Met him through Handel, who was troubled with cataract. V. has furnished funds. So don't fall to have them watch out._" "Hmm!" concluded Mr. Conne ruminatively. "You see what they're up to. We caught Schmitter in Philadelphia. They think maybe Schmitter had the key of a code with him. So they're changing the code and sending the key to it across with this somebody or other. That's about the size of it. He's got a lot of information, too, in his head, where we can't get at it." "But his credentials will have to be something that can be seen, won't they?" Tom ventured to ask. "Prob'ly. You see, he means to desert or get captured. It's a long way round, but about the best one--for him. Think of that snake wearing Uncle Sam's uniform!" "It makes me mad, too--kind of," said Tom. "So he's probably got some secret means of identification about him, and probably the new code key in actual form--somewhere else than just in his head. Then there'd be a chance of getting it across even if he fell. We'll give him an acid bath and look in his shoes if we can find him. The whole thing hangs on a pretty thin thread. They used to have invisible writing on their backs till we started the acid bath." He whistled reflectively for a few moments, while Tom struggled to muster the courage to say something that he wished to say. "Could I tell you about that other idea of mine?" he blurted finally. "You sure can, Tommy. That's about all we're likely to get--ideas." And he glanced at Tom again with that funny, sideways look. "Shoot, my boy." "It's only this," said Tom, still not without some trepidation, "and maybe you'll say it's no good. You told me once not to be thinking of things that's none of my business." "Uncle Sam's business is our business now, Tommy boy." "Well, then, it's just this, and I was thinking about it while I was riding just after I started away from Cantigny. Mostly I was thinking about it after I took that last special look at old Piff----" Mr. Conne chuckled. "I see," he said encouragingly. "Whoever that feller is," said Tom, "there's one thing sure. If he's comin' as a soldier he won't get to the front very soon, 'cause they're mostly the drafted fellers that are comin' now and they have to go in training over here. I know, 'cause I've seen lots of 'em in billets." "Hmm," said Mr. Conne. "So if the feller expects to go to the front and get captured pretty soon, prob'ly he's in a special unit. Maybe I might be all wrong about it--some fellers used to call me Bullhead," he added by way of shaving his boldness down a little. But Mr. Conne, with hat tilted far down over his forehead and cigar at an outrageously rakish angle, was looking straight ahead of him, at a French flag across the way. "Go on," he said crisply.