knew, till he could ask her to be his wife. If Daisy could see how he
was being taken into his employer's confidence!

Lars Larssen startled him with a remark that savoured of
thought-reading. "My three-hundred-a-year men," he said, "don't write
home about business matters."

"I quite understand, sir."

Later in the afternoon, Jimmy Martin of the _Europe Chronicle_ sent in
his card at the Grand Hotel, and Lars Larssen did not keep him waiting
beyond a few moments.

The tubby little journalist was no hero-worshipper. Few journalists can
be--they see too intimately the strings which work the affairs of the
world for the edification of a trustful public. Consequently, Martin's
attitude in the presence of the millionaire shipowner was as free from
constraint or subservience as it would be in the dressing-room of La
Belle Ariola, who danced the bolero at a _café chantant_, or in the ward
of the Malesherbes Hôpital, interviewing an _apache_ with a cracked
skull.

Lars Larssen summed him up with lightning rapidity of thought, and
adjusted his own attitude to a friendly, confidential basis.

Said Martin: "You want to talk about contraband of war? I'd better tell
you the _Chronicle_'s red-hot against the olive-branch merchants, so I
hope you're not one of them. Say you agree with us, and I can spread you
over half a column."