left the table, Lennard said to
Mr Parmenter:

"I am going to renew my acquaintance with our celestial visitor
to-night. I shall want a couple of hours to run over my calculations and
verify the position of the comet up to date; and then, say at eleven
o'clock, I should like you and Lord Westerham to come up to the
observatory and have a somewhat serious talk."

The owner of the great reflector looked up quickly over his wine-glass
and said:

"Look here, Mr Lennard, I guess this poor old country of yours has about
enough serious matters on hand just now without worrying about comets.
What's the trouble now?"

"My dear sir," replied Lennard, gravely, "this is a matter which not
only England, but every other country in the world, will have to trouble
about before very long."

"Say, that sounds pretty serious," said Mr Parmenter. "What's the worry
with this old comet of yours, anyhow?"

Lord Westerham smiled, and Lennard could not help smiling too as he
replied:

"It is too long a story to tell now, sir, and what is more, I cannot
tell it until I have reverified my observations and figures, and,
besides, the ladies will be expecting us. I shall be quite ready for you
by eleven. By the way, I haven't told you yet that those shells were a
perfect success, from our point of view, at least. It seems rather
curious how that all came about, I must say. Here's Denis Castellan, the
brother of the traitor, a British naval officer, and like his sister an
acquaintance of Westerham's. I discover the explosive, tell you about
it, you tell Westerham, and send me off to try it on the _Ithuriel_, and
here I come back from London with Miss Castellan and her aunt."

"Quite an excellent arrangement of things on the part of the Fates,"
remarked Lord Westerham, with a meaning which Mr Parmenter did not
understand.

"Why, yes," said their host, "quite like a piece out of a story, isn't
it? And so that explosive got its work in all right, Mr Lennard?"

"As far as we could see," replied Lennard. "It tore steel armour into
shreds as if it had been cardboard, and didn't leave a living thing
anywhere within several yards of the focus of the explosion. Erskine and
Castellan are filling up with it, and I expect we shall hear something
about it from London before long. I am glad to say that Lord Beresford
told me that after what he had seen of our fire, Government and private
gun factories were going to work night and day turning out pneu