rst machine, he took it down to them and
exhibited it with pardonable pride. There was a dial on it exactly like
a clock, although it had but one hand.

"Let us see it work," said Picard; "set it so that the bell will ring
in three minutes."

Adolph did as requested, and stood back when the machine began to work
with a scarcely audible tick-tick. Picard pulled out his watch,
and exactly at the third minute the hammer fell on the bell.
"That is very satisfactory," said Picard; "now, can you make the
next one slightly concave, so that a man may strap it under his coat
without attracting attention? Such a shape is useful when passing the
Customs."

"I can make it any shape you like, and thinner than this one if you
wish it."

"Very well. Go out and get us a quart of beer, and we will drink to
your success. Here is the money."

Adolph obeyed with his usual docility, staying out, however, somewhat
longer than usual. Picard, impatient at the delay, spoke roughly to him
when he returned, and ordered him to go upstairs to his work. Adolph
departed meekly, leaving them to their beer.

"See that you understand that machine, Lamoine," said Picard. "Set it
at half an hour."

Lamoine, turning the hand to the figure VI on the dial, set the works
in motion, and to the accompaniment of its quiet tick-tick they drank
their beer.

"He seems to understand his business," said Lamoine.

"Yes," answered Picard. "What heady stuff this English beer is. I wish
we had some good French bock; this makes me drowsy."

Lamoine did not answer; he was nodding in his chair. Picard threw
himself down on his mattress in one corner of the room; Lamoine, when
he slipped from his chair, muttered an oath, and lay where he fell.

Twenty minutes later the door stealthily opened, and Adolph's head
cautiously reconnoitred the situation, coming into the silent apartment
inch by inch, his crafty eyes rapidly searching the room and filling
with malicious glee when he saw that everything was as he had planned.
He entered quietly and closed the door softly behind him. He had a
great coil of thin strong cord in his hand. Approaching the sleeping
men on tiptoe, he looked down on them for a moment, wondering whether
the drug had done its work sufficiently well for him to proceed. The
question was settled for him with a suddenness that nearly unnerved
him. An appalling clang of the bell, a startling sound that seemed loud
enough to wake the dead, made him s