odding his head emphatically.

Ikey ran down the alley beside the restaurant while his mates waited at
the corner. The side door was not used save by the restaurant help; but
Ikey insinuated himself in by that entrance and in half a minute poked
his head out of the door again and beckoned furiously to the other boys.

"Oi, oi!" he chuckled in high feather, when they joined him. "We are in
luck all right. Those fellows got a booth, and Abe is layin' the table
in the one next to it, this side, for us. Come on! They won't see us."

"If they take a look out of the curtains they will," declared Torry.

"Have a care, now, about talking," Whistler advised earnestly. "Say
nothing about boats or the sea. No whispering, remember! Talk right out
when you talk at all."

"All right, me lud," said Frenchy. "Anything else?"

"Yes," said Whistler grimly. "This is a Dutch treat. Every fellow pays
for his own eats. Last time we were in a restaurant you all wished the
check on to me."

At that his mates chuckled much. Each had excused himself and gone out
"just for a minute," and Whistler found himself, after waiting half an
hour, expected by the waiter to pay the whole score.

The four got into the booth the waiter had prepared for them, and
Whistler sat with his back against the partition dividing it from that
in which Blake and his companion sat. Between the clatter of dishes, the
waiter's calls to the order man, and the talking of his own friends,
Whistler could not hear much at first. But he knew the two men whom he
suspected were talking in English.

Of course they would not be unwise enough to speak in German. By this
time the German language when spoken in public places was beginning to
cause remark. Wise Germans, whether friendly or enemy aliens, were not
using it.

One of the voices Whistler heard in the other booth, however, was
distinctly German in its accent. This he was quite sure was the skipper
of the oil tender. The other man used perfect English.

"They would not be likely to select a man too obviously German for a big
part in any plot," thought Whistler. "And that Blake looks like a suave,
well educated fellow."

The latter man spoke low, too. The other had a bluff and coarse voice.
He was a typical old sea-dog in his way. Only, a German sea-dog!

"Are you going back there yet?" Whistler heard him ask.

"For just one thing. You know what that is, Braun."

"_Ach!_ Yes."

"My work is done there," said t