disturbing to have all the crowned heads of Europe and their
secretaries calling upon you for details of a massacre that
never came off."

At the end of two hours Gordon returned from the consulate
with a mass of manuscript in his hand.

"Here's three thousand words," he said, desperately. "I never
wrote more and said less in my life. It will make them weep
at the office. I had to pretend that they knew all that had
happened so far; they apparently do know more than we do, and
I have filled it full of prophesies of more trouble ahead, and
with interviews with myself and the two ex-Kings. The only
news element in it is, that the messengers have returned to
report that the German vessel is not in sight, and that there
is no news. They think she has gone for good. Suppose she
has, Stedman," he groaned, looking at him helplessly, "what
AM I going to do?"

"Well, as for me," said Stedman, "I'm afraid to go near that
cable. It's like playing with a live wire. My nervous system
won't stand many more such shocks as those they gave us this
morning."

Gordon threw himself down dejectedly in a chair in the office,
and Stedman approached his instrument gingerly, as though it
might explode.

"He's swearing again," he explained, sadly, in answer to
Gordon's look of inquiry. "He wants to know when I am going