ing. The yard itself might have covered an acre of ground
perhaps, bordering the river by a handsome quay and showing mighty
stacks of good wood all ready for the barges or seasoning against next
year's shipment. Two gates of considerable size admitted the lorries
that went in from the town, and by them stood the wooden hut at whose
window inquiries must be made. Here Alban presented himself ten minutes
after Lois had left him.

"I wish to see Herr Petermann," he said in English.

A young Jew clerk took up a scrap of paper and thrust it forward.

"To write your name, please, mein Herr."

Alban wrote his name without any hesitation whatever. The clerk called a
boy, who had been playing by a timber stack, and dispatched him in quest
of his chief.

"From Dantzig, mein Herr?" he asked.

"No," said Alban civilly, "from London."

"Ah," said the clerk, "I think it would be Dantzig. Lot of Englishes
from Dantzig--you have not much of the woods in Engerland, mein Herr."

He did not expect a reply and immediately applied himself to the useful
occupation of killing a blue-bottle with the point of his pen. Two or
three lorries rolled in and out while Alban waited. He could see ships
passing upon the river and hear the scream of a steam-saw from a shed
upon his left hand. A soldier passed the gate, but hardly cast a glance
at the yard. Five minutes must have elapsed before Herr Petermann
appeared. He held the paper in a thin cadaverous hand as though quite
unacquainted with his visitor's name and not at all curious to be
enlightened.

"You are Mr. Kennedy," he said in excellent English.

"Yes," said Alban, "a friend of mine told me to come here."

"It would be upon the business of the English ship--ah, I should have
remembered it. Please come to my office. I am sorry to have kept you
waiting."

He was a short man and very fat, clean shaven and a thorough German in
appearance. Dressed in a very dirty white canvas suit, he shuffled
rather than walked across the yard, never once looking to the right
hand or to the left and apparently oblivious of the presence of a
stranger. This manner had befriended him through all the stormy days
Warsaw had lately known. Even the police had no suspicion of him. Old
fat Petermann, who hobnobbed with sailors--what had revolution to do
with him!

"This way, mein Herr--yonder is my office. When I go to Dantzig by water
my books go with me. That is very good for the health to live upon the