a State Founder, or at least he was that after being titular ruler of some little spot of a Teutonic grand-duchy.  No one of the great powers would let any other of the great powers possess the country, so it had been handed over to the Duc de Mersch, who had at heart, said Cal, the glorious vision of founding a model state—­the model state, in which washed and broadclothed Esquimaux would live, side by side, regenerated lives, enfranchised equals of choicely selected younger sons of whatever occidental race.  It was that sort of thing.  I was even a little overpowered, in spite of the fact that Callan was its trumpeter; there was something fine about the conception and Churchill’s acquiescence seemed to guarantee an honesty in its execution.

The Duc de Mersch wanted money, and he wanted to run a railway across Greenland.  His idea was that the British public should supply the money and the British Government back the railway, as they did in the case of a less philanthropic Suez Canal.  In return he offered an eligible harbour and a strip of coast at one end of the line; the British public was to be repaid in casks of train-oil and gold and with the consciousness of having aided in letting the light in upon a dark spot of the earth.  So the Duc de Mersch started the Hour.  The Hour was to extol the Duc de Mersch’s moral purpose; to pat the Government’s back; influence public opinion; and generally advance the cause of the System for the Regeneration of the Arctic Regions.

I tell the story rather flippantly, because I heard it from Callan, and because it was impossible to take him seriously.  Besides, I was not very much interested in the thing itself.  But it did interest me to see how deftly she pumped him—­squeezed him dry.

I was even a little alarmed for poor old Cal.  After all, the man had done me a service; had got me a job.  As for her, she struck me as a potentially dangerous person.  One couldn’t tell, she might be some adventuress, or if not that, a speculator who would damage Cal’s little schemes.  I put it to her plainly afterward; and quarrelled with her as well as I could.  I drove her down to the station.  Callan must have been distinctly impressed or he would never have had out his trap for her.

“You know,” I said to her, “I won’t have you play tricks with Callan—­not while you’re using my name.  It’s very much at your service as far as I’m concerned—­but, confound it, if you’re going to injure him I shall have to show you up—­to tell him.”

“You couldn’t, you know,” she said, perfectly calmly, “you’ve let yourself in for it.  He wouldn’t feel pleased with you for letting it go as far as it has.  You’d lose your job, and you’re going to live, you know—­you’re going to live....”

I was taken aback by this veiled threat in the midst of the pleasantry.  It wasn’t fair play—­not at all fair play.  I recovered some of my old alarm, remembered that she really was a dangerous person; that ...