s hadn't been losing
money at all, and that he hadn't really sold it. He had another crook
running it, and sending him all the profits, only the law couldn't do
anything about that, because there'd been a sort of fake sale, and they
said this other man had bought it legally. Do you see how that could be,
sir?"

"Yes, very easily. I'd have to know more about the facts to understand
it properly, but I can understand that it's possible."

"I thought you would, sir. Well, that was how it was. We knew he'd
cheated us. A lawyer that was a friend of my dad's said he thought Mike
Hallo would still be away ahead of the game, even if he paid my mother a
hundred thousand dollars, or perhaps a hundred and fifty thousand! And
we--why, my mother's got about five hundred a year left to look after
herself and my little sister, and we used to have ever so much when dad
was alive! So I just came over here to find Mike and try to make him
come through."

"Good for you!" exclaimed the consul, carried away for the moment. But
then he frowned thoughtfully. "Look here, Dick, I believe your story,
right through. You're not the sort of boy that would get things twisted.
But if you couldn't make Hallo disgorge in New York, how can you hope to
do it here, where he has all sorts of influence--pull, as you call it?
And how did you get here, anyway? It costs money to travel from New York
to Semlin."

"I had a good job, and saved up my money, sir. And then I worked my way
across the ocean as a steward. I'd studied languages a good deal, too,
and I got another job then, traveling with a rich family that wanted to
have someone to buy tickets and tell how much things cost in the shops,
so that they wouldn't get cheated. I came as far as Buda-Pesth with
them, and then they paid my way to Belgrade so that I could reserve
rooms for them there. You see, I can talk German and Magyar and Servian
and Russian, as well as French and English and Italian."

"For heaven's sake!" said the consul, in amazement. "My boy, I'm not so
sure that you won't be able to give Hallo a bad time, after all! You
must have a gift of tongues. I don't know half the languages you do, and
I'm supposed to, too, in my work."

"Oh, I've always been pretty good at languages, sir. And if you like to
know how to talk other languages, you can find people that speak them
all in New York. I know a little Turkish, too--not so very much, but
enough to get along. And I forgot about the Gree