grilled bone. He showed no personal animus, and, I must say for him,
that he conducted the case for the prosecution without heat or anger.
He mocked me, grilled and taunted me, but he was always
charmingly polite.

As Whitman said, "I want Becker," so Rupert said, "Fe, fo, fi, fum, I
want the blood of an Englishman." He was determined to get it. I was
even more interested that he should not. The points he made against
me were that my German pass was signed neither by General
Jarotsky nor by Lieutenant Geyer, but only stamped, and that any
rubber stamp could be forged; that my American passport had not
been issued at Washington, but in London, where an Englishman
might have imposed upon our embassy; and that in the photograph
pasted on the passport I was wearing the uniform of a British officer. I
explained that the photograph was taken eight years ago, and that
the uniform was one I had seen on the west coast of Africa, worn by
the West African Field Force. Because it was unlike any known
military uniform, and as cool and comfortable as a golf jacket, I had
had it copied. But since that time it had been adopted by the English
Brigade of Guards and the Territorials. I knew it sounded like fiction;
but it was quite true.

Rupert of Hentzau smiled delightedly.

"Do you expect us to believe that?" he protested.

"Listen," I said. "If you could invent an explanation for that uniform as
quickly as I told you that one, standing in a road with eight officers
trying to shoot you, you would be the greatest general in Germany."