Marco. It fascinated him for the entire evening and he felt relieved
after it and slept well.

Even before they had left London, certain newspapers had swept out of
existence the story of the descendant of the Lost Prince. This had been
done by derision and light handling--by treating it as a romantic
legend.

At first, The Rat had resented this bitterly, but one day at a meal,
when he had been producing arguments to prove that the story must be a
true one, Loristan somehow checked him by his own silence.

"If there is such a man," he said after a pause, "it is well for him
that his existence should not be believed in--for some time at least."

The Rat came to a dead stop. He felt hot for a moment and then felt
cold. He saw a new idea all at once. He had been making a mistake in
tactics.

No more was said but, when they were alone afterwards, he poured
himself forth to Marco.

"I was a fool!" he cried out. "Why couldn't I see it for myself!
Shall I tell you what I believe has been done? There is some one who
has influence in England and who is a friend to Samavia. They've got
the newspapers to make fun of the story so that it won't be believed.
If it was believed, both the Iarovitch and the Maranovitch would be on
the lookout, and the Secret Party would lose their chances. What a
fool I was not to think of it! There's some one watching and working
here who is a friend to Samavia."

"But there is some one in Samavia who has begun to suspect that it
might be true," Marco answered. "If there were not, I should not have
been shut in the cellar. Some one thought my father knew something.
The spies had orders to find out what it was."

"Yes. Yes. That's true, too!" The Rat answered anxiously. "We shall
have to be very careful."

In the lining of the sleeve of Marco's coat there was a slit into which
he could slip any small thing he wished to conceal and also wished to
be able to reach without trouble. In this he had carried the sketch of
the lady which he had torn up in Paris. When they walked in the streets
of Munich, the morning after their arrival, he carried still another
sketch. It was the one picturing the genial-looking old aristocrat
with the sly smile.

One of the things they had learned about this one was that his chief
characteristic was his passion for music. He was a patron of musicians
and he spent much time in Munich because he loved its musical
atmosphere and the earnestness of