coming along there eyeing the benches?"

"Yes."

"I believe he's a spy. He is really looking more at the men than at the
benches. We must be very careful, or one of those fellows will get in
our way."

"It will be the worse for him," muttered Dale under his breath, as he
went on with his work with redoubled energy.

"And for us too," replied Max, lifting a heavy shell with an ease that
many of the regular workmen, practised though they were, could not have
excelled.

The man stopped when he reached the bench on which Max and Dale were
working. "Where are you from?" he enquired sharply, in very indifferent
Walloon.

"Yonder," replied Max, nodding towards the poorer quarter of the town.
"Back of Rue Gheude."

"You're a Belgian, eh?"

"Yes," admitted Max with an appearance of reluctance.

"Why do you come here to work? Many of your countrymen refuse to work."

"One must live," replied Max sullenly. Then he went on in an angry tone:
"We have been deserted and left to starve. Why shouldn't we work? They
should protect us, these French and English, if they want us to remain
on their side. Are we to let our little ones perish for their sakes?"

"You are right, my friend," replied the man approvingly. "These English
and Frenchmen care naught so long as their country is safe. Why should
Belgians fight their battles for them? No, no, my friend."

Max nodded and turned back to his work. The man watched him for a minute
or two and then continued on his way along the shop, scarcely glancing
at Dale, who was to all appearances too engrossed in his work to pay
much attention to what was going on about him.

"End of round No. 1," whispered Max to his friend. "We've got the better
of Mr. Ferret so far, but I fear we shall have trouble in getting many
live shells away from under the noses of him and his tribe."

"We shall do it," replied Dale confidently. "We may get the job of
loading them up on the lorries presently and find an opportunity. If the
worst comes to the worst we must carry medium-sized ones away one by one
in our folded coats."

"H'm!" grunted Max. "We must find a safer way than that I fancy. I doubt
if our ferret friends would let us do much of that sort of thing."

Dale shrugged his shoulders in contempt of the whole of the spy crew,
and the conversation dropped.

For some two weeks Max and Dale worked in the filling-shops, observing
the routine and making careful note of every circumstance that se