Mr. Fentolin sighed gently.

“Perhaps our points of view might differ.”

“We have spent a very agreeable few minutes in explanations,” Mr. Dunster continued.  “Would it be asking too much if I now suggest that we remove the buttons from our foils?”

“Why not?” Mr. Fentolin assented smoothly.  “Your first question to yourself, under these circumstances, would naturally be:  ’What does Mr. Fentolin want with me?’ I will answer that question for you.  All that I ask—­it is really very little—­is the word agreed upon.”

Mr. Dunster held his cigar a little way off and looked steadfastly at his host for a moment.  “So you have interpreted my cipher?”

Mr. Fentolin spread out the palms of his hands in a delicate gesture.

“My dear Mr. Dunster,” he said, “one of the simplest, I think, that was ever strung together.  I am somewhat of an authority upon ciphers.”

“I gather,” Mr. Dunster went on, although his cigar was burning itself out, “that you have broken the seal of my dispatches?”

Mr. Fentolin closed his eyes as though he had heard a discord.

“Nothing so clumsy as that, I hope,” he murmured gently.  “I will not insult a person of your experience and intelligence by enumerating the various ways in which the seal of a dispatch may be liquefied.  It is quite true that I have read with much pleasure the letter which you are carrying from a certain group of very distinguished men to a certain person now in The Hague.  The letter, however, is replaced in its envelope; the seal is still there.  You need have no fears whatever concerning it.  All that I require is that one word from you.”

“And if I give you that one word?” Mr. Dunster asked.

“If you give it me, as I think you will,” Mr. Fentolin replied suavely, “I shall then telegraph to my agent, or rather I should say to a dear friend of mine who lives at The Hague, and that single word will be cabled by him from The Hague to New York.”

“And in that case,” Mr. Dunster enquired, “what would become of me?”

“You would give us the great pleasure of your company here for a very brief visit,” Mr. Fentolin answered.  “We should, I can assure you, do our very best to entertain you.”

“And the dispatch which I am carrying to The Hague?”

“Would remain here with you.”

Mr. Dunster knocked the ash from his cigar.  Without being a man of great parts, he was a shrewd person, possessed of an abundant stock of common sense.  He applied himself, for a few moments, to a consideration of this affair, without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion.

“Come, Mr. Fentolin,” he said at last, “you must really forgive me, but I can’t see what you’re driving at.  You are an Englishman, are you not?”

“I am an Englishman,” Mr. Fentolin confessed “or rather,” he added, with ghastly humour, “I am half an Englishman.”