_"Eempossible!"_ murmured the Russian attache, just as if the
matter had not come under his notice semi-officially.

I presume that this exclamation disclosed another side to diplomacy,
which, stripped of its fine clothes, means dexterity in hiding
secrets and in negotiating lies. When one diplomat believes what
another says, it is time for the former's government to send him
packing. However, the Englishman at my right gazed smiling into his
partly emptied glass and gently stirred the ice. I admire the English
diplomat; he never wastes a lie. He is frugal and saving.

"But the newspapers!" cried the journalist. "They never ran a line;
and an exploit like this would scarce have escaped them."

"If I remember rightly, it was reported in the regular police items
of the day," said I.

"Strange that the boys didn't look behind the scenes."

"Oh, I don't know," remarked the congressman; "lots of things happen
of which you are all ignorant. The public mustn't know everything."

"But what's the hero's name?" asked the journalist.

"That's a secret," I answered. "Besides, when it comes to the bottom
of the matter, I had something to do with the suppressing of the
police news. In a case like this, suppression becomes a law not
excelled by that which governs self-preservation. My friend has a
brother in the War Department; and together we worked wonders."