e exclaimed. "You _are_ a brick!"

With trembling fingers he began to shed his outer garments.

To hide his own agitation Billy walked to the window and turned his
back. Night had fallen and the electric lights, that once had been his
care, sprang into life. Billy looked at his watch. It was seven o'clock.
The window gave upon the harbor, and a mile from shore he saw the cargo
lights of the _Prinz der Nederlanden_, and slowly approaching, as though
feeling for her berth, a great battleship. When Billy turned from the
window his voice was apparently undisturbed.

"We've got to hurry," he said. "The _Louisiana_ is standing in. She'll
soon be sending a launch for you. We've just time to drive to the palace
and back before the launch gets here."

From his mind President Ham had dismissed all thoughts of the warship
that had been sighted and that now had come to anchor. For the moment he
was otherwise concerned. Fate could not harm him; he was about to dine.

But, for the first time in the history of his administration, that
solemn ceremony was rudely halted. An excited aide, trembling at his own
temerity, burst upon the president's solitary state.

In the anteroom, he announced, an officer from the battleship
_Louisiana_ demanded instant audience.

For a moment, transfixed in amazement, anger, and alarm President Ham
remained seated. Such a visit, uninvited, was against all tradition; it
was an affront, an insult. But that it was against all precedent argued
some serious necessity. He decided it would be best to receive the
officer. Besides, to continue his dinner was now out of the question.
Both appetite and digestion had fled from him.

In the anteroom Billy was whispering final instructions to St. Clair.

"Whatever happens," he begged, "don't _laugh_! Don't even smile
politely! He's very ignorant, you see, and he's sensitive. When he meets
foreigners and can't understand their language, he's always afraid if
they laugh that he's made a break and that they're laughing at _him_.
So, be solemn; look grave; look haughty!"

"I got you," assented St. Clair. "I'm to 'register' pride."

"Exactly!" said Billy. "The more pride you register, the better for
us."

Inwardly cold with alarm, outwardly frigidly polite, Billy presented
"Lieutenant Hardy." He had come, Billy explained, in answer to the call
for help sent by himself to the Secretary of State, which by wireless
had been communicated to the _Louisiana_. Lieuten