glamour of royalty encompassed him,--something a human finds
hard to resist, and he was only a dog.

Meanwhile another messenger had entered the chamber of finance
and had gone. On the minister's desk lay a crumpled sheet of
paper on which was written:

"Treason and treachery! It has at this moment been ascertained
that, while pretending to be our agents in securing the consols,
M. Everard & Co. now refuse to deliver them into the custody of
Baron von Rumpf, as agreed, and further, that M. Everard & Co.
are bankers and attorneys to his Excellency the British minister.
He must not leave this city with those consols."

With his eyes riveted on these words, the minister of finance,
huddled in his chair, had fallen into a profound study.

There were terrible times in the house of Josef that night.




CHAPTER III


AN EPISODE TEN YEARS AFTER

One fine September morning in a year the date of which is of no
particular importance, a man stepped out of a second-class
carriage on to the canopied platform of the railway terminus in