ready for you ever since your blundering, swaggering spy there" with
a jerk of a rigid thumb towards Von Wetten "and this fat slave" Herr
Haase was indicated here "first came sniffing round my premises. I
knew they'd be sending you along, with your blank cheques and your
tongue; and here you are!"

He mouthed his words in an extravagance of offence and ridicule; his
gaunt body and his thin arms jerked in a violence of gesticulation,
and the jagged scar that striped his face pulsed from red to white.
The old baron, solid and unmoving on his seat, watched him with still
attention.

"Not a Swiss?" he persisted, when the young man had ceased to shout
and shrug.

For answer, suddenly as an attacker, the young man strode across to
him and bent, thrusting his feverish and passion-eaten face close to
the other man's. His forefinger, long, large-knuckled, jerked up; he
traced with it upon his face the course of the great disfiguring scar
that flamed diagonally from the inner corner of the right eye to the
rim of the sharp jaw.

"Did you ever see a Swiss that carried a mark like that?" he cried,
his voice breaking to a screech. "Or an Englishman, or a Frenchman?
Or anybody but but" he choked breathlessly on his words "or anybody
but a German? Man, it's my passport!"

He remained yet an instant, bent forward, rigid finger to face, then
rose and stepped back, breathing hard. The three of them stuck,
staring at him.

Von Wetten broke the silence. "German?" he said, in that infuriating
tone of peremptory incredulity which his kind in all countries
commands. "You, a German?"

The lean youth turned on him with a movement like a swoop. "Yes me!"
he spat. "And a deserter from my military service, too! Make the best
of that, you Prussian Schweinhund!"

"Was!" Von Wetten started as though under a blow; his monocle fell;
he made a curious gesture, bringing his right hand across to his left
hip as though in search of something; and gathered himself as though
about to spring to his feet. The Baron lifted a quiet hand and
subdued him.

"Yes," he said, in his even, compelling tones. "Make the best of
that, Von Wetten."

Von Wetten stared, arrested in the very act of rising. "Zu Befehl,
Herr Baron," he said, in a strained voice, and continued staring. The
Baron watched him frowningly an instant, to make sure of his
submission, and turned again to Herr Bettermann where he stood, lean
and glowering, before them.

"Now," he said,