Patents and the laws which regulate them are queer things to have to do with. No one who has not had personal experience of the complications that arise could believe how far these spread and how entangled they become. Great acuteness as well as caution is called for if you would guide your patent bark safely to port--and perhaps more than anything, a power of holding your tongue. I was no chatterbox, nor, when on a mission of importance, did I go about looking as if I were bursting with secrets, which is, in my opinion, almost as dangerous as revealing them. No one, to meet me on the journeys which it often fell to my lot to undertake, would have guessed that I had anything on my mind but an easy-going young fellow's natural interest in his surroundings, though many a time I have stayed awake through a whole night of railway travel if at all doubtful about my fellow-passengers, or not dared to go to sleep in a hotel without a ready-loaded revolver by my pillow. For now and then--though not through me--our secrets did ooze out. And if, as _has_ happened, they were secrets connected with Government orders or contracts, there was, or but for the exertion of the greatest energy and tact on the part of my superiors, there _would_ have been, to put it plainly, the devil to pay. One morning--it was nearing the end of November--I was sent for to Herr Wilhelm's private room. There I found him and Herr Gerhardt before a table spread with papers covered with figures and calculations, and sheets of beautifully executed diagrams. "Lutz," said Herr Wilhelm. He had known me from childhood, and often called me by the abbreviation of my Christian name, which is Ludwig, or Louis. "Lutz, we are going to confide to you a matter of extreme importance. You must be prepared to start for London to-morrow." "All right, sir," I said, "I shall be ready." "You will take the express through to Calais--on the whole it is the best route, especially at this season. By travelling all night you will catch the boat there, and arrive in London so as to have a good night's rest, and be clear-headed for work the next morning." I bowed agreement, but ventured to make a suggestion. "If, as I infer, the matter is one of great importance," I said, "would it not be well for me to start sooner? I can--yes," throwing a rapid survey over the work I had before me for the next two days--"I can be ready to-night." Herr Wilhelm looked at Herr Gerhardt. Herr Gerhardt shook his head. "No," he replied; "to-morrow it must be," and then he proceeded to explain to me why.