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 vent to a short laugh—"why I did not want to bring any of my own staff with me. If you care for a short tour, all expenses paid at slap-up hotels and a ten-pound note in your pocket at the end, you can have it for two hours' work a day."

I suppose my face expressed my acceptance, for he did not wait for me to speak.

"Only one thing I stipulate for," he added, "that you mind your own business and keep your mouth shut. You're by yourself, aren't you?"

"Yes," I told him.

He wrote on a sheet of his notebook, and, tearing it out, handed it to me.

"That's your hotel at Antwerp," he said.

"You are Mr. Horatio Jones's secretary." He chuckled to himself as he repeated the name, which certainly did not fit him. "Knock at my sitting-room door at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. Good night!"

He ended the conversation as abruptly as he had begun it, and returned to his cabin.

I got a glimpse of him next morning, coming out of the hotel bureau. He was speaking to the manager in French, and had evidently given instructions concerning me, for I found