nn Brothers_. Thon's the model of her on the chimneypiece."

Lord Dunseverick looked at the model attentively. It represented a very
unattractive ship. Her bow was absurdly high, cocked up like the snout
of a Yorkshire pig. Her long waist lay low, promising little freeboard
in a sea. Her engines and single funnel were aft. On a short, high
quarterdeck was her bridge and a squat deck-house. She was designed,
like her owner, for purely business purposes.

"You'll have the captain's cabin," said McMunn. "Him and me will sleep
in the saloon."

"Oh, you're coming too?"

"I am. Have you any objection?"

"None whatever. I'm delighted. We'll have a jolly time."

"I'll have you remember," said McMunn, "that it's not pleasuring we're
out for."

"It's serious business. Smuggling rifles in the teeth of a Royal
Proclamation is----"

"When I understand," said McMunn, "and you understand, where's the use
of saying what we're going for? I'm taking risks enough anyway, without
unnecessary talking. You never know who's listening to you."

"About paying for the--er--the--er--our cargo? Is that all arranged?"

"They'll be paid in bills on a Hamburg bank," said McMunn.

"Won't they expect cash? I should have thought that in transactions of
this kind----"

"You're not a business man, my lord; but I'd have you know that a
bill with the name of McMunn to it is the same as cash in any port in
Europe."

"Well, that's your part of the affair. I am leaving that to you."

"You may leave it What I say I'll do. But there's one thing that I'm no
quite easy in my mind about."

"If you're thinking about the landing of the guns----"

"I'm no asking what arrangements you've made about that. The fewer there
is that knows what's being done in a business of this kind, the better
for all concerned. What's bothering me is this. There's a man called
Edelstein."

"Who's he? I never heard of him before."

"He's the Baron von Edelstein, if that's any help to you."

"It isn't. He's not the man we're buying the stuff from."

"He is not. Nor he wasn't mentioned from first to last till the letter I
got the day."

He turned to the safe beside him and drew out a bundle of papers held
together by an elastic band.

"That's the whole of the correspondence," he said, "and there's the last
of it."

He handed a letter to Lord Dunseverick, who read it through carefully.

"This baron," he said, "whoever he is, intends to pay his respects to us
be