me the glad hand to-night, mister," he cried. "I'm
bringing home the bacon at last."

"The signals?"

"Same as I said in my cable. Every last one of them, semaphore, lamp
code, Marconi--a copy, mind you, not the original. That was too
dangerous. But it's the real goods, and you can lay to that." He
slapped the German upon the shoulder with a rough familiarity from
which the other winced.

"Come in," he said. "I'm all alone in the house. I was only waiting
for this. Of course a copy is better than the original. If an original
were missing they would change the whole thing. You think it's all safe
about the copy?"

The Irish-American had entered the study and stretched his long limbs
from the armchair. He was a tall, gaunt man of sixty, with clear-cut
features and a small goatee beard which gave him a general resemblance
to the caricatures of Uncle Sam. A half-smoked, sodden cigar hung from
the corner of his mouth, and as he sat down he struck a match and relit
it. "Making ready for a move?" he remarked as he looked round him.
"Say, mister," he added, as his eyes fell upon the safe from which the
curtain was now removed, "you don't tell me you keep your papers in
that?"

"Why not?"

"Gosh, in a wide-open contraption like that! And they reckon you to be
some spy. Why, a Yankee crook would be into that with a can-opener.
If I'd known that any letter of mine was goin' to lie loose in a thing
like that I'd have been a mug to write to you at all."

"It would puzzle any crook to force that safe," Von Bork answered.
"You won't cut that metal with any tool."

"But the lock?"

"No, it's a double combination lock. You know what that is?"

"Search me," said the American.

"Well, you need a word as well as a set of figures before you can get
the lock to work." He rose and showed a double-radiating disc round
the keyhole. "This outer one is for the letters, the inner one for the
figures."

"Well, well, that's fine."

"So it's not quite as simple as you thought. It was four years ago
that I had it made, and what do you think I chose for the word and
figures?"

"It's beyond me."

"Well, I chose August for the word, and 1914 for the figures, and here
we are."

The American's face showed his surprise and admiration.

"My, but that was smart! You had it down to a fine thing."

"Yes, a few of us even then could have guessed the date. Here it is,
and I'm shutting down to-morrow morning."

"Well,