As
Frederic Hoff she had thought him wonderfully handsome and masterful. As
Captain Sir Frederic Seymour, in his regimental finery, he was simply
irresistible.
"A joke?" she repeated. "Do explain, I'm dying to know all about it."
"It wasn't half as difficult a job as one might imagine, you know. Our
censor chaps at home have got to be quite expert at reading letters,
invisible ink and all that sort of thing. Hoff for months had been
sending cipher messages to the war office in Berlin. He kept urging them
to act on his all-wonderful plan for blowing up New York. They decided
finally to try it and notified old Otto they were sending over an
officer to supervise the job."
"What became of him? The officer they sent over?"
"Our people picked him off a Scandinavian boat and locked him up. They
took his papers and turned them over to me. Clever, wasn't it?"
"And you took his name and his papers and came here in his place? Oh,
that was a brave, brave thing to do."
"I wouldn't say that," said Seymour modestly. "I fancy I look a bit like
the chap, and I speak the language perfectly."
"But it was such a terrible risk to take," cried Jane with a shudder.
"Suppose they'd found you out?"
"No danger of that," laughed Frederic. "Old Otto never had seen the chap
who was coming.
Pages:
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234