here
is one club in Manhattan which reaches what is probably close to the
limit on that kind of exclusiveness: Members must be white,
Anglo-Saxon, Protestant Americans who can trace their ancestry as
white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant Americans back at least as far as the
American Revolution _without exception_, and who are worth at least
ten millions, and who can show that the fortune came into the family
at least four generations back. No others need apply. It is said that
this club is not a very congenial one because the two members hate
each other.

The club in which Lacey and Thorn ate their dinner is not of that
sort. It is composed of military and naval officers and certain
civilian career men in the United States Government. These men are
professionals. Not one of them would ever resign from government
service. They are dedicated, heart, body, and soul to the United
States of America. The life, public and private, of every man Jack of
them is an open book to every other member. Of the three living men
who have held--and the one who at present holds--the title of
President of the United States, only one was a member of the club
before he held that high office.

As an exclusive club, they rank well above England's House of Peers
and just a shade below the College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic
Church.

Captain Lacey was a member. Mr. Richard Thorn was not, but he was
among those few who qualify to be invited as guests. The carefully
guarded precincts of the club were among the very few in which these
two men could talk openly and at ease.

After the duck came the brandy, both men having declined dessert. And
over the brandy--that ultra-rare Five Star Hennessy which is
procurable only by certain people and is believed by many not to exist
at all--Captain Lacey finally asked the question that had been
bothering him for so long.

"Thorn," he said, "three months ago that battery didn't exist. I know
it and you know it. Who was the genius who invented it?"

Thorn smiled, and there was a subtle wryness in the smile. "Genius is
the word, I suppose. Now that the contracts with the Navy have been
signed, I can give you the straight story. But you're wrong in saying
that the thing didn't exist three months ago. It did. We just didn't
know about it, that's all."

Lacey raised his bushy, iron-gray eyebrows. "Oh? And how did it come
to the attention of North American Carbide & Metals?"

Thorn puffed out his cheeks