EAUMANOIR, Villa Turquoise, Chantilly.
Come and join in the revel. ALEC.

He gave the message to an attendant, bidding him despatch it from
Chalons. He reasoned that Beaumanoir would be puzzled, would call at the
Rue Boissiere, see his father, and solve the mystery. In all likelihood,
Lord Adalbert, who cheerfully answered to the obvious nickname--would
accept the invitation, and by the time he reached Delgratz the
succession to the throne of Kosnovia would be in a fair way toward
settlement. Moreover, by depriving the Chantilly team of their crack
Number One, Alec would equalize matters for the Wanderers, and the love
of sport is ever the ruling passion in healthy and vigorous youth.

"By gad!" he said to himself, "I'm showing craft already. That is a
Machiavellian wire!"

It was, as it happened, a stroke worthy of the wily Florentine himself;
but neither he nor his latest pupil could possibly have estimated its
true bearing on events.

After dinner Stampoff found him. Delgrado was astounded at first.
Stampoff, shorn of his immense mustache, ceased to be a General. In
fact, the wizened, keen faced old man bore a striking resemblance to a
certain famous actor of the Comedie Francaise; but he was not seated in
Alec's compartment ten seconds with the door closed ere he showed that
the loss of his warrior aspect had in no way tamed his heart.

"Yes," he said, passing a lean hand over his blue-black upper lip, "it
was necessary to disguise myself. Ten years are not so long, and I am
known on the Danube. You see, we must get through to Delgratz and the
Schwarzburg. Once there, with three thousand bayonets behind us, we can
do things. Leave the fighting to me, your----"

He stopped, and glanced at a fat Turk lumbering along the corridor.

"Exactly, my dear old friend," said Alec. "Drop titles, please, until we
have a right to use them. Even then they can be left to gentlemen ushers
and court chamberlains. Alec and Paul sound better, anyhow. But you were
outlining a scheme. I go with you as far as Delgratz; but those bayonets
in the Schwarzburg will not be behind me, I hope. Some of them may come
within measurable distance of my manly chest; but even that is
improbable, for I have always noticed that vulgar assassins are
cowards."

Stampoff's bushy eyebrows had been spared, and they formed a hairy seam
now straight across eyes and nose. "You forget, perhaps you do not
know, that these men alone have actually