in the navy; he
is a German, therefore we can not touch him unless he commits some
overt act. He waits; there is where the danger, the real danger, lies.
He waits; and it is his German blood which gives him this patience. A
Frenchman would have exploded long since."

"You have searched his luggage and his rooms, times without number."

"And found nothing; nothing that I might use effectively. But there is
this saving grace; he on his side knows nothing."

"I would I were sure of that also. Eh, well; I leave the affair in
your hands, and they are capable ones. When the time comes, act, act
upon your own initiative. In this matter we shall give no accounting
to Germany."

"No, because what I do must be done secretly. It will not matter that
Germany also knows and waits. But this is true; if we do not
circumvent him, she will make use of whatever he does."

"It has its whimsical side. Here is a man who may some day blow up
France, and yet we can put no hand on him till he throws the bomb."

"But there is always time to stop the flight of the bomb. That shall
be my concern; that is, if monsieur is not becoming discouraged and
desires me to occupy myself with other things. I repeat: I have
rheumatism, I apprehend the damp. He will go to America."

"Ah! It would be a very good plan if he remained there."

The little man did not reply.

"But you say in your reports that you have seen him going about with
some of the Orleanists. What is your inference there?"

"I have not yet formed one. It is a bit of a riddle there, for the
crow and the eagle do not fly together."

"Well, follow him to America."

"Thanks. The pay is good and the work is congenial." The tone of the
little man was softly given to irony.

Gray-haired, rosy-cheeked, a face smooth as a boy's, twinkling eyes
behind spectacles, he was one of the most astute, learned, and patient
of the French secret police. And he did not care the flip of his
strong brown fingers for the methods of Vidocq or Lecoq. His only
disguise was that not one of the criminal police of the world knew him
or had ever heard of him; and save his chief and three ministers of
war--for French cabinets are given to change--his own immediate friends
knew him as a butterfly hunter, a searcher for beetles and scarabs,
who, indeed, was one of the first authorities in France on the
subjects: Anatole Ferraud, who went about, hither and thither, with a
little red button in