“Really?  Does he talk as well as Jack Lamont did?”

“He talks less like the Troy Technical Institute, and more like the ‘Home Journal’ than poor Prince Jack did, and then he has a much greater sense of humor.  When I told him that the oath of an insurance man should be ‘bet your life!’ he laughed.  Now, Jack would never have seen the point of that.  Anyhow, the hour is too late, and I am too sleepy, to worry about young men, or jokes either.  Good-night!”

Next morning’s mail brought Dorothy a bulky letter decorated with English stamps.  She locked the door, tore open the envelope, and found many sheets of thin paper bearing the heading of the Bluewater Club, Pall Mall.

“I am reminded of an old adage,” she read, “to the effect that one should never cross a bridge before arriving at it.  Since I bade good-by to you, up to this very evening, I have been plodding over a bridge that didn’t exist, much to my own discomfort.  You were with me when I received the message ordering me home to England, and I don’t know whether or not I succeeded in suppressing all signs of my own perturbation, but we have in the Navy now a man who does not hesitate to overturn a court martial, and so I feared a re-opening of the Rock in the Baltic question, which might have meant the wrecking of my career.  I had quite made up my mind, if the worst came to the worst, to go out West and become a cow-boy, but a passenger with whom I became acquainted on the ‘Enthusiana’ informed me, to my regret, that the cow-boy is largely a being of the past, to be met with only in the writings of Stewart Edward White, Owen Wister, and several other famous men whom he named.  So you see, I went across the ocean tolerably depressed, finding my present occupation threatened, and my future uncertain.

“When I arrived in London I took a room at this Club, of which I have been a member for some years, and reported immediately at the Admiralty.  But there, in spite of all diligence on my part, I was quite unable to learn what was wanted of me.  Of course, I could have gone to my Uncle, who is in the government, and perhaps he might have enlightened me, although he has nothing to do with the Navy, but I rather like to avoid Uncle Metgurne.  He brought me up since I was a small boy, and seems unnecessarily ashamed of the result.  It is his son who is the attache’ in St. Petersburg that I spoke to you about.”

Dorothy ceased reading for a moment.

“Metgurne, Metgurne,” she said to herself.  “Surely I know that name?”

She laid down the letter, pressed the electric button, and unlocked the door.  When the servant came, she said: 

“Will you ask at the office if they have any biographical book of reference relating to Great Britain, and if so, please bring it to me.”

The servant appeared shortly after with a red book which proved to be an English “Who’s Who” dated two years back.  Turning the pages she came to Metgurne.