"Sure! And for thirty years I've gone hunting for trouble, and
never failed to find it. I don't like this affair, Kitty; and
because I don't I'm going to risk my Samson locks in your lily-white
hands. I am going to tell you two things: I am a secret foreign
agent of the United States Government. Now don't light up that way.
Dark alleys and secret papers and beautiful adventuresses and
bang-bang have nothing at all to do with my job. There isn't a
grain of romance in it. Ostensibly I am a war correspondent. I
have handled all the big events in Serbia and Bulgaria and Greece
and southwestern Russia. Boiled down, I am a census taker of
undesirables. Socialist, anarchist and Bolshevik - I photograph them
in my mental 'fillums' and transmit to Washington. Thus, when Feodor
Slopeski lands at Ellis Island with the idea of blowing up New York,
he is returned with thanks. I didn't ask for the job; it was thrust
upon me because of my knowledge of the foreign tongues. I accepted
it because I am a loyal American citizen."

"And you left me because you' didn't know who might be at the door!"

"Precisely. I am known in lower New York under another name. I'm a
rabid internationalist. Down with everything! I don't go out much
these days; keep under cover as much as I can. Once recognized, my
value would be nil. In a flannel shirt I'm a dangerous codger."

"And Gregor and this poor young man are in some way mixed up with
internationalism!"

"Victims, probably."

"What is the other thing you wish to tell me?"