and single words
alternately; the single words the codebook offered a selection of a
couple of hundred of them were meaningless, and employed solely to
separate the phrases; and for half an hour Herr Haase's task was to
separate this ballast from the cargo of the message and jettison it.
There lay before him then a string of honest-looking mercantile
phrases "market unsettled," "collections difficult," and the like
which each signified a particular word. He sat back in his chair and
took a preliminary glance at the thing.

It was a code he used frequently himself, and there were phrases in
the message, two or three, which he knew by heart. As he scanned it
it struck him that all of these were of the same character; they were
words of deprecation or demur. "Existing rate of exchange" meant
"regret"; "active selling" meant "impossible"; and "usual discount"
was the code-form of "unfortunate." Herr Haase frowned and reached
for his key.

Midnight was close at hand when he reached the Baron's room, with the
telegram and his neatly-written interpretation in an envelope. He had
changed his coat and shoes for the visit; it was the usual Herr
Haase, softish of substance, solemn of attire, official of demeanor,
who clicked and bowed to the Baron and Von Wetten in turn.

"Our good Haase," said the Baron. "At last!"

He wore a brown cloth dressing-gown with a cord about the middle; and
somehow the garment, with its long skirts and its tied-in waist,
looked like a woman's frock? With the white hair and the contained
benevolence and power of his face it gave him the aspect of a
distorted femininity, a womanhood unnatural and dire. Even Herr Haase
perceived it, for he stared a moment open-mouthed before he recovered
himself. Von Wetten, smoking, in an easy chair, was in evening dress.

Herr Haase, with customary clockwork-like military motions, produced
his envelope and held it forth.

"The code-telegram of which I telephoned your Excellency and a
transcription of it," he announced.

Von Wetten took his cigar from his lips and held it between his
fingers. The Baron waved the proffered envelope from him.

"Read it to us, my good Haase," he said.

"Zu befehl, Excellenz!" Herr Haase produced from the envelope the
crackling sheet of thin paper, held it up to the light, standing the
while with heels together and chest outthrust, and read in the high
barrack-square voice:

"Herr Sigismund Haase, Friedrichsruhe, Thunam-See, Sw