Eph had a tight grip on the stranger’s hand, by this time, and was surely making it interesting for the Frenchman.  The Chevalier d’Ouray was doing his best to retain his politeness, but Somers’s hearty grip hurt the foreigner’s soft little hand.

“What can we do for you, Chev?” demanded Eph, holding to the Frenchman’s hand so persistently that Hastings gave his friend a sharp nudge in the back.

“Let us go somewhere,” urged the Frenchman.  “Some place were we can sit down and have ze talk about important matters.  I have ze message for you zat I cannot deliver upon ze street.”

“Now, don’t say, please,” begged Eph, “that you have heard we are wanted in the French Navy.”

The Chevalier d’Ouray looked intensely astonished.

“Parbleu!  You are one marvel!” gasped the Frenchman.  “You read my most secret thought.  But yes!  You have made ze one right guess.  However, I cannot more say upon ze street.  Let us go somewhere.”

“All right,” nodded Eph.  “You go along, now, and we’ll be along in an hour.”

“Wiz pleasure,” nodded the chevalier, eagerly.  “But we’re shall I go?”

“Anywhere you like,” suggested Eph, cordially.

“But, zen, how will you know w’ere I am to be found?”

“Oh, we’ll take a chance on that,” proposed Eph, carelessly.

“But, unless I am able to say, now, w’ere I shall be—­” the Frenchman started to argue.

“We’ll guess the meeting place as well as we did your errand,” proposed Eph.

“Ten thousan’ thanks!” cried, the chevalier.  “Yet, for fear we mek ze one mistek, suppose I say—­”

Eph Somers had struck such a streak of “guying” nonsense that Jack Benson felt called upon to interpose, for he and Hal both liked the twinkling eyes and good-humored face of this dandified little Frenchman.

“Pardon me, sir,” Jack accordingly broke in, “but, if we happened to guess your errand, it was because we have just gotten away from the agent of another government.”

“How?  Is zat posseeble?” cried the Chevalier d’Ouray, a disappointed look coming into his face.

“Yes; it’s true,” nodded Jack.

“But you did not come to any terms wiz him?”

“Oh, no!”

“Ah, zen, ze coast is steel clear,” cried the little Frenchman, delightedly.  “So, as to w’ere we can meet and mek ze one talk—­”

“We can get that all over with, right here,” Jack replied.  “We can make you the same answer that we gave the other man.  We are Americans, and would never think of serving any other flag, even in peace time.  Chevalier, I can save your time by telling you that any arrangement to engage our services away from the United States would be utterly hopeless.”

“But ze money—­” began the Frenchman, protestingly.

“There isn’t money enough across the Atlantic to hire us,” Jack answered, bluntly.

“And ze honneur—­”