s like a mouse quiet! Und she
keeps dot yoong man quiet! You see! No, no! Not for Nihla to make
some foolishness und publicity. French agents iss vatching for her
too--l'affaire du _Mot d'Ordre_. She iss vat you say, 'in Dutch'! Iss
she, vielleicht, a German spy? In France they believe it. Iss she a
French spy? Ach! Possibly some day; not yet! And it iss for us Germans
to know always vat she iss about. Dot iss my affair, not yours,
Soane."

A heavy jowled man in a soiled apron brought two big mugs of beer and
retired on felt-slippered feet.

"Hoch!" grunted Freund, burying his nose in his frothing mug.

Soane, wasting no words, drank thirstily. After a long pull he shoved
aside his sloppy stein, rose, cautiously unlatched the shutter of a
tiny peep-hole in the wall, and applied one eye to it.

"Bad luck!" he muttered, "there do be wan av thim secret service lads
drinkin' at the bar! I'll not go home yet, Max."

"Dot big vone?" inquired Freund, mildly interested.

"That's the buck! Him wid th' phony whiskers an' th' Dootch get-up!"

"Vell, vot off it? Can he do somedings?"

"And how should I know phwat that lad can do to th' likes o' me, or
phwat the divil brings him here at all, at all! Sure, he's been around
these three nights running----"

Freund laughed his contempt for all things American, including police
and secret service, and wiped his chin with the back of his hand.

"Look, once, Soane! Do these Yankees know vat it iss a police, a
gendarme, a military intelligence? Vat they call secret service, wass
iss it? I ask it? Schweinerei! Dummheit? Fantoches! Imbeciles! Of the
Treasury they haff a secret service; of the Justice Department also
another; and another of the Army, and yet another of the Posts! Vot
kind of foolish system iss it?--mitout no minister, no chef, no
centre, no head, no organisation--und everybody interfering in vot
efferybody iss doing und nobody knowing vot nobody is doing--ach wass!
Je m'en moque--I make mock myself at dot secret service which iss too
dam dumm!" He yawned. "Trop bete," he added indistinctly.

Soane, reassured, lowered the shutter, came back to the table, and
finished his beer with loud gulps.

"Lave us go up to the lodge till he goes out," he suggested. "Maybe
th' boys have news o' thim rifles."

Freund yawned again, nodded, and rose, and they went out to an
unlighted and ill-smelling back stairway. It was so narrow that they
had to ascend in single file.

Hal