stratagem.

"Poor Virgil!" said Miss Chuff with a sigh. "I'm afraid he has had
a grievous ordeal. We must run carefully now, so as not to give
him away."

Fortunately Miss Chuff's presence at the wheel, and Bleak's
credentials as war correspondent, enabled them to pass several
scouting parties of chuff uhlans without suspicion. In this way
they neared the extensive grounds surrounding the Federal Home for
Inebriates, Cana, N. J. This magnificent Gothic building, already
showing some signs of decay from two years of vacancy, stands on a
slight eminence among what the real estate agents call "old
shade," with a fine and carefully calculated view over one of the
largest bodies of undrinkable fluid known to man, the Atlantic
Ocean.

The car turned into a narrow sandy road skirting one side of the
walled park. This byway was completely screened from outside
observation by the high bulwark of the Home and by thick masses of
rhododendron shrubbery. At a bend in the road Miss Chuff halted
the motor, and motioned Bleak to descend.

"Now we will look for the persecuted patriot," she said.

Bleak took charge of the basket of food, and Miss Chuff drew a
small rope ladder from a locker under the driver's seat. This she
threw deftly up to the top of the wall, hooking it upon the iron
spikes. Bleak politely ascended first, and they scaled the wall,
dropping down into a tangle of underbrush.