r game or no
one's'; and my own sullen 'Oh, I'll keep the secret!' London was
utterly impossible. If I found my informant, what credentials had I,
what claim to confidences? None, unless I told the whole story. Why,
my mere presence in Whitehall would imperil the secret; for, once on
my native heath, I should be recognized--possibly haled to judgement;
at the best should escape in a cloud of rumour--'last heard of at
Norderney'; 'only this morning was raising Cain at the Admiralty
about a mythical lieutenant.' No! Back to Friesland, was the word.
One night's rest--I must have that--between sheets, on a feather bed;
one long, luxurious night, and then back refreshed to Friesland, to
finish our work in our own way, and with none but our own weapons.

Having reached this resolve, I was nearly putting it into instant
execution, by alighting at Amersfoort, but thought better of it. I
had a transformation to effect before I returned North, and the more
populous centre I made it in the less it was likely to attract
notice. Besides, I had in my mind's eye a perfect bed in a perfect
hostelry hard by the Amstel River. It was an economy in the end.

So, at half-past eight I was sipping my coffee in the aforesaid
hostelry, with a London newspaper before me, which was unusually
interesting, and some German journals, which, 'in hate of a wrong not
theirs', were one and all seething with rancorous Anglophobia. At
nine I was in the Jewish quarter, striking bargains in an infamous
marine slop-shop. At half-past nine I was despatching this
unscrupulous telegram to my chief--'Very sorry, could not call
Norderney; hope extension all right; please write to Hotel du Louvre,
Paris.' At ten I was in the perfect bed, rapturously flinging my
limbs abroad in its glorious redundancies. And at 8.28 on the
following morning, with a novel chilliness about the upper lip, and a
vast excess of strength and spirits, I was sitting in a third-class
carriage, bound for Germany, and dressed as a young seaman, in a
pea-jacket, peaked cap, and comforter.

The transition had not been difficult. I had shaved off my moustache
and breakfasted hastily in my bedroom, ready equipped for a journey
in my ulster and cloth cap. I had dismissed the hotel porter at the
station, and left my bag at the cloak-room, after taking out of it an
umber bundle and substituting the ulster. The umber bundle, which
consisted of my oilskins, and within them my sea-boots and a few
ot