ference to consider the scientific problems presented by certain
recent phenomena and that my proposition was adopted. I believe that
in this way the proceedings here may be delayed indefinitely and
time thus secured to enable an expedition to be organized and
dispatched for the purpose of destroying this unknown person or
ascertaining the secret of his power, in accordance with my previous
suggestion. It would be well to send as delegates to this Conference
No. 2 several professors of physics who can by plausible arguments
and ingenious theories so confuse the matter that no determination
can be reached. I suggest Professors Gasgabelaus, of Muenchen, and
Leybach, of the Hague.

"VON KOENITZ."

And having thus fulfilled his duty the count took a cab to the
Metropolitan Club and there played a discreet game of billiards with
Senor Tomasso Varilla, the ex-minister from Argentina.

Von Koenitz from the first had played his hand with a skill which from a
diplomatic view left nothing to be desired. The extraordinary natural
phenomena which had occurred coincidentally with the first message of
Pax to the President of the United States and the fall of Cleopatra's
Needle had been immediately observed by the scientists attached to the
Imperial and other universities throughout the German Federated States,
and had no sooner been observed than their significance had been
realized. These most industrious and thorough of all human investigators
had instantly reported the facts and their preliminary conclusions to
the Imperial Commissioners, with the recommendation that no stone be
left unturned in attempting to locate and ascertain the causes of this
disruption of the forces of nature. The Commissioners at once demanded
an exhaustive report from the faculty of the Imperial German University,
and notified Von Koenitz by cable that until further notice he must seek
in every way to delay investigation by other nations and to belittle the
importance of what had occurred, for these astute German scientists had
at once jumped to the conclusion that the acceleration of the earth's
motion had been due to some human agency possessed of a hitherto
unsuspected power.

It was for this reason that at the first meeting at the White House the
Ambassador had pooh-poohed the whole matter and talked of snowstorms in
the Alps and showers of fish at Heidelburg, but with the rending of the
northe