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Rh just the way it did strike me. Queer, wasn't it, now? Why under the sun should he want her to cultivate your acquaintance particularly?"

"Who is this guardian of Bessie Gleason?" asked Tom. "His name is a German one, but one gentleman I talked with assured me he was a naturalized American and carried his papers around with him, so that he might not be debarred from landing in England."

"Yes," added Jack, anxious to add his mite to the slender mass of information they had been able to accumulate, "and another man told me Carl Potzfeldt fairly bubbles over with enthusiasm for the glorious Stars and Stripes. He says he looks on Germany as a nation gone mad, and agrees that sooner or later Uncle Sam will have to shy his hat into the ring to help hog-tie the wild beast."

"All of which sounds very fine," agreed Tom, with a curl to his lip. "But in these days who can know what the real sentiments deep down in the heart of such a man may be? A spy would naturally be loud in his talk of loyalty to the flag, in order to hide his genuine sympathies."

"Another thing you ought to know, Tom," continued the other, "though up to now I haven't mentioned it to you. Bessie Gleason asked me to introduce her to you. Yes, and she acted, well, peculiar when saying that she'd like to