ut, though
where his thoughts would lead him he did not know. This was a more
difficult problem than he had ever dreamed of facing. There was no one
to ask advice of. Only himself and The Rat, who was nervously
wriggling and twisting in his chair.

"You must sit still," he said to him. "The hair-dresser is afraid you
will make him cut you by accident."

"But I want to know who lives at the Residenz?" said The Rat. "These
men can tell us things if you ask them."

"It is done now," said the old hair-dresser with a relieved air.
"Perhaps the cutting of his hair makes the young gentleman nervous. It
is sometimes so."

The Rat stood close to Marco's chair and asked questions until Heinrich
also had done his work. Marco could not understand his companion's
change of mood. He realized that, if he had wished to give the Sign,
he had been allowed no opportunity. He could not have given it. The
restless questioning had so directed the older man's attention to his
son and Marco that nothing could have been said to Heinrich without his
observing it.

"I could not have spoken if he had been the man," Marco said to himself.

Their very exit from the shop seemed a little hurried. When they were
fairly in the street, The Rat made a clutch at Marco's arm.

"You didn't give it?" he whispered breathlessly. "I kept talking and
talking to prevent you."

Marco tried not to feel breathless, and he tried to speak in a low and
level voice with no hint of exclamation in it.

"Why did you say that?" he asked.

The Rat drew closer to him.

"That was not the man!" he whispered. "It doesn't matter how much he
looks like him, he isn't the right one."

He was pale and swinging along swiftly as if he were in a hurry.

"Let's get into a quiet place," he said. "Those queer things you've
been telling me have got hold of me. How did I know? How could I
know--unless it's because I've been trying to work that second law?
I've been saying to myself that we should be told the right things to
do--for the Game and for your father--and so that I could be the right
sort of aide-de-camp. I've been working at it, and, when he came out,
I knew he was not the man in spite of his looks. And I couldn't be
sure you knew, and I thought, if I kept on talking and interrupting you
with silly questions, you could be prevented from speaking."

"There's a place not far away where we can get a look at the mountains.
Let's go there and sit down,"