," he said
briskly. "Lieutenant Godfrey, my name. I am flag lieutenant of the
Britannia. You can't see her, but she's not fifty miles off at this
minute. I landed at Sheringham this morning, hired a car and made the
best of my way here. Message from the Admiral, sir."

Mr. Fentolin smiled genially.

"We are delighted to see you, Lieutenant Godfrey," he said. "Have some
breakfast."

"You are very good, sir," the officer answered. "Business first.
I'll breakfast afterwards, with pleasure, if I may. The Admiral's
compliments, and he would take it as a favour if you would haul down
your wireless for a few days."

"Haul down my wireless," Mr. Fentolin repeated slowly.

"We are doing a lot of manoeuvring within range of you, and likely to do
a bit more," the young man explained. "You are catching up our messages
all the time. Of course, we know they're quite safe with you, but things
get about. As yours is only a private installation, we'd like you, if
you don't mind, sir, to shut up shop for a few days."

Mr. Fentolin seemed puzzled.

"But, my dear sir," he protested, "we are not at war, are we?"

"Not yet," the young officer replied, "but God knows when we shall be!
We are under sealed orders, anyway, and we don't want any risk of our
plans leaking out. That's why we want your wireless disconnected."

"You need say no more," Mr. Fentolin assured him. "The matter is already
arranged. Esther, let me present Lieutenant Godfrey--my niece, Miss
Fentolin; Mr. Gerald Fentolin, my nephew; Mr. Hamel, a guest. See that
Lieutenant Godfrey has some breakfast, Gerald. I will go myself and see
my Marconi operator."

"Awfully good of you, sir," the young man declared, "and I am sure we
are very sorry to trouble you. In a week or two's time you can go into
business again as much as you like. It's only while we are fiddling
around here that the Admiral's jumpy about things. May my man have a cup
of coffee, sir? I'd like to be on the way back in a quarter of an hour."

Mr. Fentolin halted his chair by the side of the bell, and rang it.

"Pray make use of my house as your own, sir," he said gravely. "From
what you leave unsaid, I gather that things are more serious than the
papers would have us believe. Under those circumstances, I need not
assure you that any help we can render is entirely yours."

Mr. Fentolin left the room. Lieutenant Godfrey was already attacking his
breakfast. Gerald leaned towards him eagerly.

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