k like cherubs if it were German cherubs you looked like. Useless
being very nearly children if it were German children you very nearly
were. Why, precisely these qualities would be selected by those terribly
clever Germans for the furtherance of their nefarious schemes. It would
be quite in keeping with the German national character, that character
of bottomless artfulness, to pick out two such young girls with just
that type of empty, baby face, and send them over to help weave the
gigantic invisible web with which America was presently to be choked
dead.

The serious section of Acapulco, the section that thought, hit on this
explanation of the Twinklers with no difficulty whatever once its
suspicions were roused because it was used to being able to explain
everything instantly. It was proud of its explanation, and presented it
to the town with much the same air of deprecating but conscious
achievement with which one presents drinking-fountains.

Then there was the lawyer to whom Mr. Twist had gone about the
guardianship. He said nothing, but he was clear in his mind that the
girls were German and that Mr. Twist wanted to hide it. He had thought
more highly of Mr. Twist's intelligence than this. Why hide it? America
was a neutral country; technically she was neutral, and Germans could
come and go as they pleased. Why unnecessarily set tongues wagging? He
did not, being of a continuous shrewd alertness himself, a continuous
wide-awakeness and minute consideration of consequences, realize, and if
he had he wouldn't have believed, the affectionate simplicity and
unworldliness of Mr. Twist. If it had been pointed out to him he would
have dismissed it as a pose; for a man who makes money in any quantity
worth handling isn't affectionately simple and unworldly--he is
calculating and steely.

The lawyer was puzzled. How did Mr. Twist manage to have a forehead and
a fortune like that, and yet be a fool? True, he had a funny sort of
face on him once you got down to the nose part and what came after,--a
family sort of face, thought the lawyer; a sort of rice pudding,
wet-nurse face. The lawyer listened intently to all the talk and
rumours, while himself saying nothing. In spite of being a married man,
his scruples about honour hadn't been blunted by the urge to personal
freedom and the necessity for daily self-defence that sometimes afflicts
those who have wives. He remained honourably silent, as he had said he
would, but he