d where the finger of nobility was to
press the electric button, Bradley walked anxiously about, with the
same haggard look on his face that was there the night he thought of
slipping into the Thames. The place underneath was a wilderness of
beams and braces. Bradley's wooden tool chest stood on the ground
against one of the timbers. The foremen came through and struck a beam
or a brace here and there.

"Everything is all right," he said to Bradley. "There will be no
trouble, even if it was put up in a hurry, and in spite of the strain
that will be on it to-day."

Bradley was not so sure of that, but he said nothing. When the foreman
left him alone, he cautiously opened the lid of his tool chest and
removed the carpenter's apron which covered something in the bottom.
This something was a small box with a clockwork arrangement and a
miniature uplifted hammer that hung like the sword of Damocles over a
little copper cap. He threw the apron over it again, closed the lid of
the chest, leaned against one of the timbers, folded his arms and
waited.

Presently there was a tremendous cheer and the band struck up. "He is
coming," said Bradley to himself, closing his lips tighter.
"Carpenter," cried the policeman putting in his head through the little
wooden door at the foot of the stage, "come here, quick. You can get a
splendid sight of His Highness as he comes up the passage." Bradley
walked to the opening and gazed at the distinguished procession coming
toward him. Suddenly he grasped the arm of the policeman like a vice.

"Who is that man in the robes--at the head of the procession?"

"Don't you know? That is His Highness."

Bradley gasped for breath. He recognized His Highness as the man he had
met on the embankment.

"Thank you," he said to the policeman, who looked at him curiously.
Then he went under the grand stand among the beams and braces and
leaned against one of the timbers with knitted brows.

After a few moments he stepped to his chest, pulled off the apron and
carefully lifted out the machine. With a quick jerk he wrenched off the
little hammer and flung it from him. The machinery inside whirred for a
moment with a soft purr like a clock running down. He opened the box
and shook out into his apron a substance like damp sawdust. He seemed
puzzled for a moment what to do with it. Finally he took it out and
scattered it along the grass-grown slope of a railway cutting. Then he
returned to his tool chest,