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Show I Try c r u a i King Tommy ' By GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM j Copyright by Bobbs-Merrill Co. W. N. U. Service ! J !t "And even if Bhe won't marry me," said Tommy, "and I mean to have a pretty good try at persuading her, I feel pretty certain she won't marry you. No girl would. Good-by. Or perhaps I ought to say, 'Ach so, Herr Bridegroom arranged.' " - CHAPTER XI It was at half past ten that Casimtr entered the Adlon hotel the morning after the party at the Mascotte. He did not find Tommy, who by that time had gone off to the police office. He did find Janet Church, whom he rather rath-er wished to avoid. She at once attached at-tached herself to Caslmir and reminded remind-ed him of his promise to arrange for her visit to Lystrla. Casimir was quite civil to her. He is the kind of man who is civil to any woman anywhere and at any time. He had a reason for treating Janet with special politeness. He believed her to be Tommy's or rather Norhey's, aunt. "Certainly," he said. "Everything will be settled about your journey. There will be no1 difficulty at all. I shall get you a passport." In talking to Janet he spoke German Ger-man and was therefore able to express himself without quoting Shakespeare. "I don't see how you can get me a passport," said Janet. "The consul here, and the passport officer, and the people at the embassy refuse to allow al-low me to have one. If I travel at all, it must be without a passport. That's what I expect you to manage for me." "You shall have an excellent passport," pass-port," said Casimir, "a British passport, pass-port, which no one will question." "You can't get me that," said Janet. "It's impossible." Casimir smiled indulgently. They were sitting together near the door of the hall. A lady, middle-aged, Glsborne I should make her poorer. But if I take her' name, that is to say, the passport of the gracious fraulein, I do her no harm, for she gets another anoth-er one at once another passport, you understand, not another name. Whereas Where-as I make you rich in what you want With the passport of Miss Glsborne you can travel anywhere." I do not know whether that line of reasoning quieted Janet's scruples, or whether the joy of being able to go to Lystrla smothered the cries of her conscience. She ceased to object to the stealing of the passport, and became be-came exceedingly curious to know how it was to be done. "That," said Casimir, "Is easy. The English seldom lock up anything. In England, I suppose, it Is not necessary to lock things up. No doubt all the English are so rich that they do not want to take what is not theirs. Why should they when they have all they want? So here in Berlin Colonel Heard does not lock up Ills own passport pass-port or Miss Glsborne's. If sometimes, by chance, he does lock them up, he always leaves the key in the pocket of the trousers he wore the day before, be-fore, for the English are a truly great nation, and the English gentleman- is so noble he suspects no one. He would not himself steal anything, ever. Therefore he leaves his keys in the pockets of his yesterday's trousers. "All the same," said Janet, "he'll lock the door of his bedroom. We all do that." "That," said Casimir, "is nothing." Then he went on to explain to Janet how the theft was to be effected, and the explanation left her gasping. The Countess Olga, Casiinir's only sister, was at that time a housemaid In the Adlon hotel. As a housemaid she had, of course, a master key which opened all the doors on the floor on which she served. The room occupied by Colonel and Mrs. Heard and that of Miss Glsborne were under her care. She could enter them at any time shs chose, stay in them as long as she chose and not excite the smallest suspicion. sus-picion. She was familiar with Colonel Col-onel Heard's habit of leaving his keys In his trousers pockets. The first feeling which this frank confession aroused In Janet's mind was pity for the countess. It must be a dreadful thing for a highborn lady, no doubt a 'delicately nurtured lady, to be reduced to earning her living liv-ing as a housema.id In a hotel. Casimir Casi-mir explained that her pity was wasted. "It is not for the sake of wages that Olga is a housemaid," he said. "She has money enough to live otherwise, and if she had not, I would give it to her. We Lystrian nobles are not rich, but we would not allow our sisters to earn wages as servants. No. Olga is a patriot. She is a housemaid just as I was a soldier in the war for the sake of our beloved land, ours for fifteen hundred years, now taken from us. I fought, but it was no use. Olga collects col-lects Information, letters, documents, telegrams " "From people who leave their keys about," said Janet. "And, if necessary, passports," said Casimir, smiling. Janet is Jiot, I suppose, an entirely unscrupulous woman. There are things she would not do, though very few, for the sake of a cause she had at heart. She made no further protest pro-test against the theft of Miss GIs-borne's GIs-borne's passport ; but she did not want to go on talking about It. She changed the subject. "By the way," she said, "talking of passports. That young friend of yours who was with you last night in the Mascotte" "Your nephew," said Casimir. Janet recollected herself. "My nephew, yes. I am afraid he is likely to get into trouble with his passport." "But how?" said Casimir. "Surely in London they gave him a correct passport." "On his passport he is described as the Reverend Thomas A. Norreys. Now, he's not that." "He is certainly not that," said Casimir. Cas-imir. "I thought not." "It was foolish." said Casimir, "to put that on bis passport, and quile unnecessary." un-necessary." "If the police suspect anything wrung " "The police will not see that passport." pass-port." (TO PE CONTINUED.) CHAPTER X Continued 13 "For entering Germany with a false passport," said Von Steinveldt, . "you shall In prison forthwith enclosed en-closed be." "Do try not to be quite so eock-ure eock-ure that you're always right," said Tommy. "As a matter of fact, my passport Isn't false, as you call It, in T any single particular. My face is oval, my nose Is of normal shape, and my mouth Is more or less round when open, which Is just what the passport says. If you don't believe me and can't bear to look me in the face which I can understand you don't care to do after sticking me with your marks In the way you did just take a glance at the photo on the passport." This apparently struck Von Steinveldt Stein-veldt as a thing which he ought to do. He took a long look at the photograph, pho-tograph, which indeed bore very little resemblance to Tommy. Then, Instead In-stead of comparing it with Tommy's ' face, he rapidly turned over the pile of papers on the desk in front of him. From among them he drew out another an-other photograph and looked carefully careful-ly at It. He placed both photographs side by side and stared at them. Then, suddenly, he looked up at Tommy. Tom-my. "Of what height are you?" he asked. "Five foot, ten and a half inches, see passport," said Tommy, "forehead broad, eyes blue, nose normal, face oval. Mouth round when opened. It's all there." For the first time during the interview inter-view Von Steinveldt smiled. It was a grim smile, with more than a suggestion sugges-tion of malice in it ; but Tommy was glad to see a smile of any kind. "I think," said Von Steinveldt, "that there has a mistake been." "I've thought so all along," said Tommy. "That d d fool Count Casimir has this time himself a mistake made." "I don't know that Casimir is more of a fool than any one else," said Tommy. Tom-my. "You made the same mistake yourself. I don't even now profess to understand what It Is. But you made It. So did two of your police officers." "But I," said Von Steinveldt, "the mistake discovered have." "You can't take much credit for that," said Tommy. "You'd have discovered dis-covered It long Ago, in fact, you'd never nev-er have made it if you'd listened to me and believed what I said." "Soon." said Von Steinveldt, "the d d Casimir will the mistake also discover. dis-cover. Then you can say to him and your Lord Troyte, and to Herr Cable thnt another bridegroom for the fair Calvpso arranged has been." Fe sat up straight in his chair, pulled his bristly white mustache and looked so pleased that Tommy began to think that he must himself be the "arranged", bridegroom. The thought of Calypso being married against her : will Tommy felt certain it would ,be against her will to this bristly-bended German made Tommy seriously angry. an-gry. "Do yo-i mean to tell me," he said, "that you have the nerve to think of marrying her yourself?" "So." said Von Steinveldt. "Her equal In birth I certainly am." "Well, just listen to ine for a minute," min-ute," said Tommy. "You've swindled me with these benstly marks of yours In a way that a third-rate money-lender would have been ashamed of. You've set on nasty, slimy ooliee officers offi-cers to arrest me. You've dragged me about Berlin in a taxicab. You've kept me standing here for half an hour with nothing but your face to look at. Very well. I'm not going to nslc for compensation, though I ought to get it. I'm not even going to demand de-mand an apology, though if you had : as much decent feeling as a Hottentot you'd apologize without being asked. But I'll Just tell you one thing tiefore I go. I mean to marry Calypso myself." my-self." Von Steinveldt was genuinely astonished. aston-ished. He had been brought up to regard re-gard royal persons of all kinds and members of aristocracies as sacred. A pastor he now quite believed that Tommy was a curate belongs to the rank of the bourgeoisie, is hurgerlich. For sucn a one to marry "But she Is a princess." he said. ' "I don't know anything about that," said Tommy, "but whether she is or not, I mean to marry her if she will have me. And I may say that If it's a choice between you and me. I expect ex-pect to have the better chance." "So, Herr Pastor," said Von Stein-, veldt. He had sufficiently recovered from his first surprise to realize that Tommy's Tom-my's threat was absurd. No princess could possibly marry a curate. Such n thing would be worse than a wave of Bolshevism. Central European society so-ciety would be sliaken to its foundations. founda-tions. Wladislaws, as Von Steinveldt knew, was a disreputable wreck of a king. Calypso was highly unconventional unconven-tional in her manner of life. But even they could not contemplate an alli-ince alli-ince with a curate. The sneer on Von tUeinvoldt's face became quite unmis-laKanle. unmis-laKanle. "Ach so, Herr English pastor," he "No," Said Casimir, "I Shall Steal It." very neatly dressed, unmistakably English, passed them, going toward the swinging door. "That," said Casimir, "Is Miss Glsborne. Gls-borne. Miss May Gisborne. She is the secretary of Colonel Heard, who is the head of the British Graves Registration Reg-istration commission." Janet looked without particular Interest In-terest at Miss May Gisborne. "In seeking for British graves," said Casimir, "Colonel Heard, who is sometimes some-times accompanied by his wife, goes through various parts of Germany, and beyond Germany Into all the countries of eastern Europe. Miss Gisborne often goes with him, in order, or-der, I suppose, to register the graves which are found. Colonel Heard has a diplomatic passport. So has Miss Gisborne. I propose that you should use Miss Glsborne's passport." I do not suppose that Janet Church has any particular scruples about traveling with a false passport. For the sake of a noble excuse and what could be nobler than world peace? she would willingly do far worse things than that. But she was startled star-tled at the cool way in which Casimir assumed that Miss ' Gisborne's passport pass-port would he at her disposal. "But she isn't in the least likely to lend it to me." said Janet. "No," said Casimir. "I shall steal it." Even Janet shied a little at that. The word "steal" used in that way has a very nasty sound, and I suppose, sup-pose, as a worker, in the cause of Christian unity. Janet felt herself more or less committed to the Ten Commandments. "Steal!" said Janet. "But I couldn't agree " "Even Shakespeare." said Casimir, "is occasionally wrong. You recollect recol-lect ?" lie gave his quotation in English, Eng-lish, "'who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing: 'twas mine, 'tis his,- and has been slave to thousands, but he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed.' There Shakespeare was mistaken. mis-taken. If I took the purie of His |