frock coat pinned the diamond sunburst. In woeful
embarrassment Doctor Gilman smiled and bowed and smiled, and
then, as the delighted mayor of Stillwater shouted, "Speech,"
in sudden panic he reached out his hand quickly and covertly,
and found the hand of his wife.

"Now, then, three Long ones!" yelled the cheer leader. "Now,
then, 'See the Conquering Hero!'" yelled the bandmaster.
"Attention! Present arms!" yelled the militia captain; and
the townspeople and the professors applauded and waved their
hats and handkerchiefs. And Doctor Gilman and his wife, he
frightened and confused, she happy and proud, and taking it
all as a matter of course, stood arm in arm in the frame of
honeysuckles and bowed and bowed and bowed. And the
ambassador so far unbent as to drink champagne, which
appeared mysteriously in tubs of ice from the rear of the
ivy-covered cottage, with the mayor, with the wives of the
professors, with the students, with the bandmaster. Indeed,
so often did he unbend that when the perfectly new automobile
conveyed him back to the Touraine, he was sleeping happily
and smiling in his sleep.

Peter had arrived in America at the same time as had the
insignia, but Hines and Stetson would not let him show
himself in Stillwater. They were afraid if all three
conspirators foregathered they might inadvertently drop some
clew that would lead to suspicion and discovery.

So Peter worked from New York, and his first act was
anonymously to supply his father and Chancellor Black with