recollections. "I should have supposed, if you had anything of the kind to sell, that it would be to your friend, Count Bernstoff. However," he laid his hand on the other's arm, "it's an agreeable surprise to run across a fellow-countryman, no matter what the cause. Are you going my way?" "No," Rebener told him, he had an appointment on hand with one of the bureau chiefs in the Ordnance Department. "Well then suppose you dine with me tonight," suggested Edestone. "I am stopping at Claridge's and shall be awfully glad if you can come. I am entirely alone in London, you see; my cronies, I find, are all dead or at the front." "Delighted, my boy. But listen! Don't have any of your English swells. Let's make this a quiet little American dinner just to ourselves, and forget for once this ghastly war." "At eight o'clock, then," Edestone nodded. "And a strict neutrality dinner, remember. That is the only safe kind for us Americans to eat in London." "All right, Rebener, as neutral as you please. _A bientot_." And with a wave of the hand he passed on down the corridor and out of the building. His appointment with Underhill, Chief of the Admiralty, was not until 11:30, so he put in the time by sauntering rather slowly along the Thames Embankment. He regretted now that, in talking with Lord Rockstone, he had not made a little more show of force, for had he assumed a more dictatorial manner he would have at least aroused the fighting spirit in his stern antagonist, who might then have taken some interest in crushing him under his heel; whereas now he saw plainly that Rockstone considered him beneath his notice, and thereby much valuable time had been lost. Yet he did not wish to make any show of force until he knew positively that his men were all at their stations, and that the _Little Peace Maker_ was near at hand. He must be in a position to use force before playing his last card, and he had not as yet heard from "Specs." Although he knew that their instruments were perfectly attuned, he had not, up to twelve o'clock of the day before, received a single vibration. At this point he was interrupted by encountering another American who also insisted upon stopping and shaking hands. This was a young architect from New York, who had from time to time done work for his father's estate and who had also made some alterations at the Little Place in the Country for Edestone himself. He was a tall, lank young man of about twenty-seven, with little rat-like eyes, placed so close to his hawk-like nose that one felt Nature would have been kinder to him had she given him only one eye and frankly placed it in the middle