"Lord!"

He mused for a time.

He resumed his exploration of the Butteridge interior. It
included a number of press cuttings of interviews and also
several letters in German, then some in the same German
handwriting, but in English. "Hul-LO!" said Bert.

One of the latter, the first he took, began with an apology to
Butteridge for not writing to him in English before, and for the
inconvenience and delay that had been caused him by that, and
went on to matter that Bert found exciting in, the highest
degree. "We can understand entirely the difficulties of your
position, and that you shall possibly be watched at the present
juncture.--But, sir, we do not believe that any serious obstacles
will be put in your way if you wished to endeavour to leave the
country and come to us with your plans by the customary
routes--either via Dover, Ostend, Boulogne, or Dieppe. We find
it difficult to think you are right in supposing yourself to be
in danger of murder for your invaluable invention."

"Funny!" said Bert, and meditated.

Then he went through the other letters.

"They seem to want him to come," said Bert, "but they don't seem
hurting themselves to get 'im. Or else they're shamming don't
care to get his prices down.