? He had met the Twinklers, so it was
reported, on a steamer coming over from England. Of course. All arranged
by the German Government. That was the peculiar evil greatness of this
dangerous people, announced the serious section of Acapulco, again with
the drinking-fountain-presentation air, that nothing was too private or
too petty to escape their attention, to be turned to their own wicked
uses. They were as economical of the smallest scraps of possible
usefulness as a French cook of the smallest scraps and leavings of food.
Everything was turned to account. Nothing was wasted. Even the
mosquitoes in Germany were not wasted. They contained juices, Germans
had discovered, especially after having been in contact with human
beings, and with these juices the talented but unscrupulous Germans made
explosives. Could one sufficiently distrust a nation that did things
like that? asked the serious section of Acapulco.

CHAPTER XXX

People were so much preoccupied by the Twinkler problem that they were
less interested than they otherwise would have been in the sea-blue
advertisements, and when the one appeared announcing that The Open Arms
would open wide on the 29th of the month and exhorting the public to
watch the signposts, they merely remarked that it wasn't, then, the
title of a book after all. Mr. Twist would have been surprised and
nettled if he had known how little curiosity his advertisements were
exciting; he would have been horrified if he had known the reason. As it
was, he didn't know anything. He was too busy, too deeply absorbed, to
be vulnerable to rumour; he, and the twins, and Mrs. Bilton were safe
from it inside their magic circle of _Arbeit und Liebe_.

Sometimes he was seen in Main Street, that street in Acapulco through
which everybody passes at certain hours of the morning, looking as
though he had a great deal to do and very little time to do it in; and
once or twice the Twinklers were seen there, also apparently very busy,
but they didn't now come alone. Mrs. Bilton, the lady from Los
Angeles--Acapulco knew all about her and admitted she was a lady of
strictest integrity and unimpeachable character, but this only made the
Twinkler problem more obscure--came too, and seemed, judging from the
animation of her talk, to be on the best of terms with her charges.

But once an idea has got into people's heads, remarked the lawyer, who
was nudged by the friend he was walking with as the attractive