will pay you five hundred marks.'"

"The word?" I said.

"The word," he repeated.

"You must take Dutch money," I said. "Here you are ... work it out in
gulden ... and I'll pay!"

He manipulated a stump of pencil on a writing block and I paid him his
money.

Then he said:

"Boonekamp!"

"Boonekamp?" I echoed stupidly.

"That's the word," the little Jew chuckled, laughing at my dumbfounded
expression, "and, if you want to know, I understand it as little as you
do."

"But ... Boonekamp," I repeated. "Is it a man's name, a place? It sounds
Dutch. Have you no idea? ... come, I'm ready to pay."

"Perhaps ..." the Jew began.

"What? Perhaps what?" I exclaimed impatiently.

"Possibly...."

"Out with it, man!" I cried, "and say what you mean."

"Perhaps, if I could render to the gentleman the service I rendered to
his brother, I might be able to throw light...."

"What service did you render to my brother?" I demanded hastily. "I'm in
the dark."

"Has the gentleman no little difficulty perhaps? ... about his military
service, about his papers? The gentleman is young and strong ... has he
been to the front? Was life irksome there? Did he ever long for the
sweets of home life? Did he never envy those who have been medically
rejected? The rich men's sons, perhaps, with clever fathers who know how
to get what they want?"

His little eyes bored into mine like gimlets.

I began to understand.

"And if I had?"

"Then all old Kore can say is that the gentleman has come to the right
shop, as his gracious brother did. How can we serve the gentleman now?
What are his requirements? It is a difficult, a dangerous business. It
costs money, much money, but it can be arranged ... it can be arranged."

"But if you do for me what you did for my brother," I said, "I don't see
how that helps to explain this word, this clue to his address!"

"My dear sir, I am as much in the dark as you are yourself about the
significance of this word. But I can tell you this, your brother, thanks
to my intervention, found himself placed in a situation in which he
might well have come across this word...."

"Well?" I said impatiently.

"Well, if we obliged the gentleman as we obliged his brother, the
gentleman might be taken where his brother was taken, the gentleman is
young and smart, he might perhaps find a clue ..."

"Stop talking riddles, for Heaven's sake!" I cried in exasperation, "and
answer my questions plainly. First, wh