nt and detailed. There certainly had been at least one spy,
a real authentic one, afterward shot in England, who had stayed near-by,
and the nerves of the inhabitants had that jumpiness on this subject
with which the inhabitants of other countries have long been familiar.
All the customary inexplicable lights were seen; all the customary
mysterious big motor cars rushed at forbidden and yet unhindered speeds
along unusual roads at unaccountable hours; all the customary signalling
out to sea was observed and passionately sworn to by otherwise calm
people. It was possible, the inhabitants found, to believe with ease
things about Germans--those who were having difficulty with religion
wished it were equally easy to believe things about God. There was
nothing Germans wouldn't think of in the way of plotting, and nothing
they wouldn't, having thought of it, carry out with deadly thoroughness
and patience.

And into this uneasy hotbed of readiness to believe the worst, arrived
the Twinkler twins, rolling their r's about.

It needed but a few inquiries to discover that none of the young
ladies' schools in the neighbourhood had been approached on their
behalf; hardly inquiries,--mere casual talk was sufficient, ordinary
chatting with the principals of these establishments when one met them
at the lectures and instructive evenings the more serious members of the
community organized and supported. Not many of the winter visitors went
to these meetings, but Miss Heap did. Miss Heap had a restless soul. It
was restless because it was worried by perpetual thirst,--she couldn't
herself tell after what; it wasn't righteousness, for she knew she was
still worldly, so perhaps it was culture. Anyhow she would give culture
a chance, and accordingly she went to the instructive evenings. Here she
met that other side of Acapulco which doesn't play bridge and is proud
to know nothing of polo, which believes in education, and goes in for
mind training and welfare work; which isn't, that is, well off.

Nobody here had been asked to educate the Twinklers. No classes had been
joined by them.

Miss Heap was so enigmatic, she who was naturally of an unquiet and
exercise-loving tongue, that this graver, more occupied section of the
inhabitants was instantly as much pervaded by suspicions as the idlest
of the visitors in the hotels and country houses. It waved aside the
innocent appearance and obvious extreme youth of the suspects. Useless
to loo