minutes ago."

"How was that?" the babu asked. "It was sent at six o'clock."

"I was at work in the laboratory and had left orders I was not to be
disturbed. But for one thing"--the petulance of Thirteen's habitual
expression was lightened by a flash of self-gratulation, and his voice
shook a little with excitement--"I might not have received the summons
before morning."

"And that one thing?"

"Success, comrades! At last--after months of experimentation--I have been
successful!"

"'Ow?" dryly demanded the man in the checked suit.

"I have discovered a great secret--discovered, perfected, adapted it to
common means at our command. Comrades, I tell you, to-night we hold all
England in the hollow of our hands!"

With an incoherent exclamation and eyes afire the Russian sat forward.
Unconsciously the others imitated his action. Only the man in evening dress
made a show of remaining unimpressed.

"It's fine, fat words you're after using," he commented. "'All England in
the hollow of our hands!' If they mean anything at all, comrade, they
mean--"

"Everything!" Thirteen cut in with arrogant assertiveness; "all we've been
waiting for, hoping for, praying for--the end of the ruling classes,
extinction of the accursed aristocrats, subjugation of the thrice-damned
bourgeois, the triumph of the proletariat, all at a single stroke, swift,
subtle, and sure! Freedom for Ireland, freedom for India, freedom for
England, the speedy spreading of that red dawn which lights the Russian
skies to-day, till all the wide world basks in its warm radiance and
acclaims us, comrades, its redeemers!"

"Lieber Gott!" the German breathed. "Colossal!"

"'Ear, 'ear!" the Englishman applauded, perfunctory and skeptical. "Bli'me
if you didn't mike me forget where I was--'ad me thinking I was in 'Yde
Park, you did, listening to a bloody horator on a box."

"You may laugh," Thirteen replied with a sour glance; "but when you have
heard, you will not laugh. I am not boasting--I am telling you."

"Not a great deal," the Irishman suggested. "Your mouth is full of sounds
and fury, but till you tell us more you'll have told us nothing."

The face of Thirteen grew darker still, and for a moment he seemed to
meditate an angry retort; but he thought better of it, contenting himself
with an impatient movement and a mutter: "All in good time; Number One is
not here yet."

"W'y wyste time w'itin' for 'im?" demanded the Englishman. "'E's no good,
'e