bout the man?"

Von Wetten shrugged. "The difficulty is that he won't name his
price," he answered. "Don't understand him! Queer, shambling sort of
fellow, all hair and eyes, with the scar of an old cut, or something,
across one side of his face. Keeps looking at you as if he hated you!
Showed me the machine readily enough; consented to every test even
offered to let me take my stuff to the other side of the lake, three
miles away, and explode it at that distance. But when it came to
terms, all he'd do was to look the other way and mumble."

"What did you offer him?" demanded the Baron.

"My orders, Your Excellency," answered Captain von Wetten formally,
"were to agree to his price, but not to attempt negotiations in the
event of difficulty over the terms. That was reserved for Your
Excellency."

"H'm!" The Baron nodded. "Quite right," he approved. "Quite right;
there is something in this. Men have their price, but sometimes they
have to be paid in a curious currency. By the way, how much money
have we?"

Herr Haase, a mere living ache inhabiting the background, replied.

"I am instructed, Excellency, that my cheque will be honored at sight
here for a million marks," he answered, in the loud hypnotized voice
of the drill-ground. "But there is, of course, no limit."

The Baron gave him an approving nod. "No limit," he said. "That is
the only way to do things no limit, in money or anything else! Well,
Haase can bring the car round at what time, Von Wetten?"

"Twenty minutes to five!" Von Wetten threw the words over his
shoulder.

"And I shall lunch up here; it's cooler. You'd better lunch with me,
and we can talk. Send up a waiter as you go, my good Haase."

Herr Haase bowed, but clicked only faintly. "Zu Befehl, Excellenz,"
he replied, and withdrew.

In the hall below he sank into a chair, groaned and fumbled at the
buttons of his boots. He was wearing them for the first time, and
they fitted him as though they had been shrunk on to him. The porter,
his waistcoat gaping, came shambling over to him.

"You were saying," began the porter, "that the English."

Herr Haase boiled over. "Zum Teufel mit den Englandern und mit Dir,
Schafskopf!" he roared, tearing at the buttons. "Send up a waiter to
the Herr Baron and call me a cab to go home in!"

It was in a sunlight tempered as by a foreboding of sunset, when the
surface of the lake was ribbed like sea sand with the first
breathings of the evening breeze, tha