"I didn't know I owed any balance," argued Jim to his spokesman. "Tell him it was not presented to me. Tell him I will be only too glad to pay anything I owe. I always pay what I owe." The examiner gingerly took up a crumpled napkin, brown from an overturned _demi-tasse_. "August sixteenth, you spilled coffee on your napkin at lunch--half-past twelve. And you went away from the Hotel Bellevue--Bavaria--without making it good. What have you to say to that?" The sorry cloth was held up contemptuously for Jim's inspection and for the edification of the duly pained official audience, most of whom, however, doubtless made no use of such an article in their daily lives. "I never heard anything about it!" cried Deming. "In my country such things are thrown in. Nothing said about them. But tell him I'll pay it--I'll pay anything--everything. How much is it?" "Twenty-five cents, the bill claims." "What is the total?" And Jim began digging in his pockets while holding up his head testily. He had never before been accused of hotel-beating. But payment did not yet appear to be in order. He stared at the mass of files and papers before his cross-questioner. He realized that his whole record in Germany lay there. The Imperial Service had traced him like bloodhounds. Due to his frequent irritated displays of proud American independence on his tour, the bill of small grievances, now accumulated, no doubt assumed troublesome proportions when exposed in its formidable length. Three hours had been consumed, accounted for in part by the necessity of an interpreter. As meal time was at hand Deming was commanded to appear the next morning at nine to have his testimony taken at length. He departed, his buoyant nature rising once more in partial relief. True to his Yankee instincts he now concluded they were only after the money he owed. "They want to scare me to make me pay up," he said to himself. "They are afraid they won't get it. I'll pay the little two or three dollars and that will end the matter. These blamed Germans with their ten cents and twenty-five cents! What a system of government to be bothering with these idiotic trifles!" He sought distraction in several games of billiards followed by dinner at his favorite cafe. When he returned to his room late that night he found that his effects had been ransacked by two detectives. Fully incensed by this high-handed procedure he determined to place his inalienable rights in the hands of a lawyer the first thing after the early morning meeting.