pulled out a bulky notebook and a number of loose papers. The freshest
of these was an official order from the Imperial Office of Chemical
Engineers. The order ran as follows:

Capt. Karl Armstadt
Laboratory 186, E. 58.

Report is received at this office of the sound of sapping
operations in potash mine D5. Go at once and verify the same
and report of condition of gas generators and make analyses
of output of the same.

Evidently I was Karl Armstadt and very happily a chemical engineer by
profession. My task of impersonation so far looked feasible--I could
talk chemical engineering.

The next paper I proceeded to examine was an identification folder done
up in oiled fabric. Thanks to German thoroughness it was amusingly
complete. On the first page appeared what I soon discovered to be __
pedigree for four generations back. The printed form on which all this
was minutely filled out made very clear statements from which I
determined that my father and mother were both dead.

I, Karl Armstadt, twenty-seven years of age, was the fourteenth child of
my mother and was born when she was forty-two years of age. According to
the record I was the ninety-seventh child of my father and born when he
was fifty-four. As I read this I thought there was something here that I
misunderstood, although subsequent discoveries made it plausible enough.
There was no further record of my plentiful fraternity, but I took heart
that the mere fact of their numerical abundance would make unlikely any