and in that case we must get hold of Edestone himself."

"Now that is exactly what is troubling me," Smith's voice rose
hysterically. "I'm not going to stand for any of that rough stuff,
Mr. Rebener. Mr. Edestone and his father have both been mighty good to
me, and if anything happens to him I'll blow on the whole lot of you."

"So?" The proprietor's pale fat face was convulsed with a look of
hatred and contempt. "Then we are to understand, Smith, that if we
find it necessary to do away with Edestone you wish to go first? You
dirty little half-breed," he growled in an undertone. "Your mother
must have been an English woman."

"Here, here, you two fools!" Rebener broke in with sharp authority,
"there is no question of 'doing away' with Edestone, as you call
it. What we're after is the invention and not the man himself, and
we'll not get it by 'doing away' with him. I am, like Smith here,
opposed to murder, even for the Fatherland."

"But it is not murder, Mr. Rebener," interrupted the proprietor, "if
thereby we are instrumental in saving thousands of the sons of the
Fatherland."

"That would not only not save the sons of the Fatherland, but would
put an end to our usefulness, both here in London and in America,
especially if Edestone has already turned the whole thing over to
England. The very first thing for us to do is to find out how the
matter stands. If the Ministry knows nothing, we must work to get him
to Berlin, and then even you fire-eaters may safely trust it to the
Wilhelmstrasse. If it should happen, however, that the British