, it was but
natural that he should work himself up into a terrible passion, and
should turn the vials of his wrath upon the police inspector who had
treated him so brusquely. Yet in time, when his anger had died down,
he, like every other patriot in Germany, put his own personal
disadvantage aside for the sake of his beloved Fatherland. He sighed
deeply, and resumed his work with the pious wish that, if he had
suffered, his suffering might lead to the discovery and capture of the
men who had treated him so shamefully.

It is hardly necessary to narrate what followed after that interview
with the police inspector. How the car took him swiftly back to the
station, how the telephone was jingled, and how every possible official
within reasonable distance was informed of what had happened. The
station-master at the station where Henri and his friends had boarded
the train presently received a call.

"Yes, here, Inspector," he answered, politely enough, over the
telephone. "You are there and you want me--well I am here, what then?
Prisoners escaped from Ruhleben? Ah, yes, yes! I remember, the
rascals escaped perhaps a week ago, and have not been heard of since.
Have I seen them here? Pooh! If I had, you know as well as I do that
I would have apprehended them. What's that you say? They have been to
the station? You ask if I have seen three suspicious people--a man,
perhaps an old man, in a dark-blue, well-cut suit, wearing a Homberg
hat and goggles, a girl, and a man of whose appearance you have no
knowledge? Come now, that's a conundrum! I have seen many such
people."

He began to get rather angry at the cross-examination of the police
inspector--an examination, let us add, far less severe than that
inflicted upon the manager of the sugar factory, but he listened awhile.

"You may have seen many such people," he heard over the telephone, "but
all together, Herr Station-master--three all together--an oldish man,
not big, perhaps bald, with goggles; a girl, and another man of
uncertain appearance. Think now; not a very great number of people
travel on the railway nowadays unless they are soldiers; think, have
you not had such passengers?"

The station-master did think, think violently one may say, for it was
well to be on the best terms possible with the police. A
station-master might be a most important individual, very important
indeed in his own estimation, but an inspector of the police in Germany
wa