ce, he was
not sure how closely he might ally himself with this avowed leader of
the evil-doers, who announced the pillage of a metropolis. She took his
silence for consent or approval, for she jauntily continued:

"The house-maid has told me all they are hatching. They have a chaise
always ready and passports to mask the departure of the young man as a
clerk going abroad. But for precaution, they will not have him go to the
train at the depot; he might be questioned and the discrepancies in the
passport be perceived. The chaise is to convey him down the line, and he
will get on the cars at a rural depot where the gendarme and
ticket-seller will be dull and easily hoodwinked."

"Very neat," said Von Sendlingen, appreciating the plan at its due
value. "I always said old Daniels was no fool."

"What more easy than to post a couple of the horse patrol on the
road--young, hot-headed fellows with restless fingers on the triggers?
The youth will certainly refuse to surrender, whereupon, bang, bang! he
falls into the ditch with a brace of bullets in his body. You and I will
have an enemy the less. This is not the way I planned it in my dreams,
but we must take our revenge with the sauce fate serves it up to us 'on
the table of Fact.'"

"The scheme is plausible."

"Feasible! especially will it work like well-oiled machinery if you play
your part of lure creditably."

"My part?" questioned the major.

"Yes, yours. With a sorrowful eye and a smooth face, I confess I could
not confront the man I hate as strongly as his father. You are
different--you are an arch-villain--a born diplomatist who wears the
very mask for this task and has no face, no compunction, no pity of his
own. Go into that house, ask for Herr Daniels--that is the Jew player's
non-professional name--and see him and his daughter, perhaps, the young
student, too. Boldly proclaim your position as the Secret Intelligence
Agent, by which you learned their whereabouts, and that they harbor the
charitable young man who saved your life. Touch lightly on his thumping
you within an inch of it, and enlarge on your undying gratitude.
Apologize to the young lady--lay all blame on her irresistible charms
and abuse a little the fair and fickle Fraulein von Vieradlers who has
eloped without so much as an adieu to you! Depend upon it, Jews though
they are, they will applaud your Christian forgiveness, and, I do not
doubt, Frenchman though he is, young Clemenceau will give