public's damned iridium-plated hide. But I've got it at last. Good-bye!'

'Well,' said De Forest when we had finished laughing, 'if any one
understood corruption in London I might have played off Vincent against
Gerolstein, and sold my captives at enormous prices. As it is, I shall
have to be their legal adviser to-night when the contracts are signed.
And they won't exactly press any commission on me, either.'

'Meantime,' said Takahira, 'we cannot, of course, confine members of
Leopold Vincent's last-engaged company. Chairs for the ladies,
please, Arnott.'

'Then I go to bed,' said De Forest. 'I can't face any more women!' And
he vanished.

When our passengers were released and given another meal (finger-bowls
came first this time) they told us what they thought of us and the
Board; and, like Vincent, we all marvelled how they had contrived to
extract and secrete so much bitter poison and unrest out of the good
life God gives us. They raged, they stormed, they palpitated, flushed
and exhausted their poor, torn nerves, panted themselves into silence,
and renewed the senseless, shameless attacks.

'But can't you understand,' said Pirolo pathetically to a shrieking
woman, 'that if we'd left you in Chicago you'd have been killed?'

'No, we shouldn't. You were bound to save us from being murdered.'

'Then we should have had to kill a lot of other people.'