ledge
that the international plotters intended to attempt the destruction of
a British warship as a means for creating bad feeling between the two
countries. The whole plot seems foolishly improbable to me."

"It doesn't seem so to me, any longer," rejoined Dave.

"Then you must know some thing that I haven't heard about," murmured
Jetson curiously.

"Mr. Darrin," broke in Mr. Lupton, "I will be the Ambassador's
authority for you to speak as freely of the matter as you choose."

Dave and Dan thereupon told all that had befallen them at Monte Carlo
and at Naples.

"But still," Jetson broke in perplexedly, "how is the sinking of a
British warship to be brought about with safety to the plotters, and
how is the crime to be laid at the door of the American Navy?"

"I wish to speak to the Ambassador on that point before I mention it
to any one else," Dave answered.

"Have you told Dalzell?" pressed Jetson.

"I have not."

"He certainly hasn't," complained Danny Grin sadly. "Dave always tells
me after he has told every one else."

"Danny boy," Dave rebuked him, "where do you hope to go after you
die?"

"Paris," Dalzell answered promptly.

Breakfast lasted until word came that the Ambassador was ready to
receive the two young officers from the flagship of the Mediterranean
Fleet. Then Jetson left his friends.

Mr. Caine, to whom Mr. Lupton presently introduced the ensigns, was a
man in his fifties, rather bald, and with a decided stoop in his
shoulders. At home he was a manufacturer of barbed wire, and his
business, as Danny later suggested, had perhaps helped to give him
some of his keenness and sharpness. He was slenderly fashioned, and
reminded one, at first, of a professor in a minor college.

It was when the Ambassador transacted business that some of his
sterling qualities came out. He was recognized as being one of the
cleverest and ablest of American diplomats.

"I am glad to meet you, gentlemen," said the Ambassador, shaking
hands with Dave and Dan and then motioning them to seats, which an
attendant placed for them. "Mr. Lupton, you have doubtless had
Jetson's assurance that these young men are the persons they claim to
be?"

"Yes, sir," Lupton rejoined.

"Then tell me all you can of this matter," urged Mr. Caine.

At a look from Second Secretary Lupton, the attendant withdrew from
the room. Dave and Dan were soon deep in the narration of events in
which they participated at Monte Carlo and at