“You mean your friends?” asked Paul.  “But no.  Why should I ask!  For great men would not spend their days in catching little fishes—­am I not right, batuchka?”

“A thousand times right,” said the other, his grandeur growing, “but instead of catching little fishes, what do you say of a man who can let loose a large fish—­an iron fish—­a fish that can speak with a loud noise and make the whole world tremble—!”

Paul quickly raised his finger to his lips.

“Let’s go outside,” he said.  “Some one may hear us here...”

CHAPTER XXXV

At eight o’clock Mary had gone to Helen’s.

“If I’m not back at ten, I sha’n’t be home tonight,” she had told Hutchins as she left the house.

At half past eight Archey called, full of the topic which had been started that afternoon.  Hutchins told him what Mary had said.

“All right,” he said.  “I’ll wait.”  He left his car under the porte cochere, and went upstairs to chat with Miss Cordelia and Miss Patty.

At twenty to ten, Hutchins was looking through the hall window up the drive when he saw a figure running toward the house.  The door-bell rang—­a loud, insistent peal.

Hutchins opened the door and saw a man standing there, shabby and spattered with mud.

“Is Miss Spencer in?”

“No; she’s out.”

The hall light shone on the visitor’s face and he stared hard at the butler.  “Hutch,” he said in a quieter voice, “don’t you remember me?”

“N-n-no, sir; I think not, sir,” said the other—­and he, too, began to stare.

“Don’t you remember the day I fell out of the winesap tree, and you carried me in, and the next week I tried to climb on top of that hall clock, and knocked it over, and you tried to catch it, and it knocked you over, too?”

The butler’s lips moved, but at first he couldn’t speak.

“Is it you, Master Paul?” he whispered at last, as though he were seeing a visitor from the other world.  And again “Is it you, Master Paul?”

“You know it is.  Listen, now.  Pull yourself together.  We’ve got to get to the dam before ten o’clock, or they’ll blow it up.  Put your hat on.  Have you a car here?”

In the hall the clock chimed a quarter to ten.  The tone of its bell seemed to act as a spur to them both.

“There’s a young gentleman here,” said Hutchins, suddenly turning.  “I’ll run and get him right away.”

As they speeded along the road which led to the bridge above the dam, Paul told what he had heard—­Archey in the front seat listening as well as he could.

“He didn’t come right out and say so,” Paul rapidly explained, “but he dropped hints that a blind man could see.  I met him on a train yesterday—­a Russian—­a fanatic—­proud of what he’s done—!

“As nearly as I can make it out, they have got a boat leaning against the dam with five hundred pounds of TNT in it—­or hanging under it—­I don’t know which—­