In a wild rush of words Lawrence told what he had discovered. O’Brien listened closely and at the end of the account nodded his head.

“You have ’em pickled this time, me jool,” he said. “It is damnation enough if they so much as live in that place you’re mentionin’. I know the local cutthroats and pipemen, while every son of Ham that walks there has a razor ready for use, right in his closed fist. I’m that glad you came out with a whole skin. Now don’t talk; lave me think.”

He filled a pipe and slowly drawing on it, sat with his eyes fixed on a corner of the room, a look of abstraction on his usually jolly face.

At last he spoke.

“Here’s how I dope it. It’s plain Mr. Ridgeway has picked you on your recommendations to drive that dirigible. All right. Tomorrow you go to Mr. Ridgeway as his guest or long-lost nephew or what not. Anyhow, you stay right in his house as his guest. There’s that much less chance of losin’ you if they get on to who you are. And it’s a slick crowd we are buttin’ in on. When it comes time for you to start with your silly little papers and your shiny little jewelry wherever they belong, (and Mr. Ridgeway will have to tell that,) you can just start on, and O’Brien will take the job makin’ the other crowd miss their train, as you might say. What’s the time o’ night?”

“Twelve thirty,” said Lawrence.

“Pretty late,” replied O’Brien, “but let’s have a try.”

He picked up the telephone and almost immediately had Mr. Ridgeway on the wire. After a moment’s talk, he took his hat and told Lawrence to follow him. In a taxi, they arrived at Mr. Ridgeway’s house and found that gentleman reading in his room.

O’Brien outlined his plan.

“That is a very good idea,” said Mr. Ridgeway. “Of course if this was merely an affair of those crown jewels, it would be easy to outwit our friends but those jewels mean little or nothing to the man who calls himself Smith. What he wants are the papers. Either he, or someone back of him, is staging a little revolution, I think, and the papers are their most important weapon. Who is Smith? Can’t you make a guess, O’Brien?”

O’Brien shook his head. “I can’t, sir,” he said regretfully. “All I want is some good-luck fairy to point him out to me.”

“You will find him, never fear,” said Mr. Ridgeway. “You have done too many clever jobs for me to feel worried about this one. Well, Lawrence, I will be glad to have you here with me. When will you come?”

“He is here now,” laughed O’Brien. “I take no more chances. I’m like yourself, sir; I’m thinkin’ that the matter of these papers is an affair of nations.”

Mr. Ridgeway looked grave. “I can only say that the safe transfer of those papers is all that can possibly keep this country out of another war as destructive and as deadly as the last. They have clever spies, and the only thing they have not surmised, guessed at, or proved about this journey is the identity of the pilot. As I said at the first, Lawrence is protected by his youth.” The great man sighed. “Lawrence, I wish you were my son!” he said.

“A nice kid,” commended O’Brien with a twinkle. “But hard to manage, sir, and tellin’ too little.”

For four days Lawrence was a guest in the big house, spending most of the time with his host and growing more and more devoted to the kindly, shrewd man. He often repeated his regret that there was no son to carry on his name, and one night in a confidential mood told Lawrence that there had been two little boys.

“But we lost them both when they were scarcely more than babies,” he said brokenly. “I cannot talk about it.” He stopped and Lawrence, respecting his grief, turned away, not daring to offer the sympathy and affection he felt.

The subject was never referred to again, but now Lawrence knew the pathetic meaning of the two small, beautiful faces which had been rendered in glass and which formed the central medallion in a great stained glass window in the library. Near it, on the wall, was a portrait of Mrs. Ridgeway, painted only the year before. It was a most gracious figure, with a sweet, beautiful, appealing face, full of sorrow bravely concealed. It held a strange fascination for Lawrence, who found himself looking at it by the hour. Mr. Ridgeway never spoke of the picture, although Lawrence knew that no two people ever loved each other better than the great man and his beautiful wife. That she had been sent away to avoid possible harm was clear to Lawrence, and he felt that Mr. Ridgeway was very lonely. Lawrence tried to show him all the little attentions that he could think of, and it pleased him to see how eagerly Mr. Ridgeway accepted them. Only once in awhile a sigh told the boy that the big heart still mourned for the two little fellows who had met an untimely death so long ago. But no further word was spoken on the subject.

The fifth day of Lawrence’s visit fell on Tuesday. He took his bath and hurriedly dressing, went down the broad stairs three steps at a time. For the cleverest sky pilot in the world was hungry just as though he had been an ordinary boy with no thought above the Saturday football game or a coming exam. He fell upon the delicious breakfast with an amount of energy that made Mr. Ridgeway smile with pleasure.

“I want you to eat a good big breakfast, old man,” he said. “I want you to take me for a spin in the air after while.”

“That’s good,” said Lawrence. “If I don’t fly more than I am doing now, I will have to give up my license and take a job as instructor somewhere. I am getting all out of practice.”

“You can have some practice today,” said Mr. Ridgeway. He went from the breakfast table to the telephone, and immediately they hurried out to the Aviation Field in Mr. Ridgeway’s runabout. There the first person who met them was O’Brien, all in leather, with his goggles in his hand.

“Your things are in the locker room,” he said to Lawrence. “Get into them quickly. Mr. Ridgeway is plannin’ quite a little trip for you.”

Ten minutes later, they embarked in one of the larger planes, and went sailing off, O’Brien at the wheel, cutting a straight course toward the east. In a wild rush of speed, reeling league after league of sky behind them, they reached the Atlantic coast and, swerving, made for the desolate reaches of Barnegat. Lawrence, to whom this was new territory, watched everything with the greatest interest.

The tide was out, and just below the Inlet a half-mile stretch of beach, hard and firm, afforded a wonderful landing. O’Brien dropped brilliantly, and leaving the plane, they walked back until they came to the hangar where the new dirigible was housed. Lawrence gave a quick sigh of delight when he saw the balloon. He had never seen anything so clean-lined and so sporty looking as the new model. For it was absolutely the latest thing in construction, and Lawrence longed to get his hand on the steering gear.

“What do you think of that?” asked O’Brien as Mr. Ridgeway went outside with one of the men, who seemed to be in charge.

“I never saw anything so fine!” declared Lawrence. “I never saw anything just like it. Even the new models in the pictures in the trade journals are not as good in outline, and do not look as light in construction.”

“They are not,” said O’Brien. “This is the first time I have seen this but I know it was designed for Mr. Ridgeway.”

“What is its fuel?” asked Lawrence.

“Hyolax,” said O’Brien. “In a year no gasoline will be used except for old type autos and farm trucks. I tell you hyolax is some bird when it comes to power!”

“I wonder if I will have any trouble managing it,” said Lawrence dubiously. “I ought to try it out, seems to me.”

“That is what we came for,” said O’Brien. “I have an idea you are going across very soon. And Mr. Ridgeway wanted to let you have one chance anyhow to get used to this type of dirigible. As far as hyolax goes, it works exactly like gasoline except that it is about twenty times more concentrated and its driving power is much greater. You will be crazy over it.”

A few minutes later the big dirigible, manoeuvered into the open, rose lazily from the sand and in obedience to a command from Mr. Ridgeway, they turned out to sea. For the next two hours, high above the tossing waves, Lawrence manoeuvered the balloon, learning its tricks as a good horseman learns the whims of a favorite steed. Lawrence was crazy over it, as O’Brien had said, and the two older men, Mr. Ridgeway and O’Brien, as well as the two mechanicians who accompanied them, were astounded by the delicate perceptions and skillful handling that the boy pilot gave the balloon.

When at last they had, as O’Brien expressed it, “put the tube to bed” and had once more mounted in the invisible roads of the air, Lawrence was at the wheel of the plane, and bad work he made of it for the first ten minutes. It was like driving a flivver after a twelve-cylinder touring car. The plane wobbled and shifted until he hit his stroke again. Reaching the home field, Lawrence silently hopped out of the plane and followed Mr. Ridgeway and O’Brien into the auto. He was very still all the way home. The day was gone, and dinner was served soon after their return. Then Mr. Ridgeway sat frowning, and presently leaned forward to say:

“I will have to have a talk with you both, and on my life I don’t know where we will be safe. I am afraid everywhere.”

“Right you are!” said O’Brien. “But I have just the place. A brother of mine has a drug store over on H street. There is a basement where he keeps his surplus stock. The stairs is at the right of the store as you go in, away back behind the screen where they dodge to make you up tonic pills out of newspaper and sugar.

“I will go ahead, and tip me brother off, and then you come along wan at a time, and when you go in hold on to the left lapel of your coats so he’ll know you and go right back to the stairs and down ’em. I will have chairs ready.”

The plan worked, and Mr. Ridgeway and Lawrence wandered through the small drug store and down the concealed stairs, to find O’Brien ready with three soap boxes for seats.

Four walls, covered with rows of bottles of all sizes under the sun, comprised the furnishings. As O’Brien said, there was not room enough anywhere for a kitten to hide. There was a door at the top of the stairs, and this O’Brien closed and locked. Another door at the bottom he also closed, then turned expectantly to Mr. Ridgeway. That gentleman smiled.

“Now then,” he said, “it is time for me to show you all the cards. You know, O’Brien, who this Smith is?”

“The most dangerous scoundrel in Europe, and the slickest knave that ever planned the downfall of his own country to satisfy his own miserable ambition. That much and more I know, but try as I may I can’t get my eyes on him, nor yet my hands.”

“He is slick all right,” agreed Mr. Ridgeway. “But thanks to this extra dirigible and the place at Barnegat, we will elude him. That is all I want now. After we are off, O’Brien, start something that will bring that gang inside the law, and arrest the whole bunch on suspicion or what not. Anything to keep them from doing any mischief.”

“But Mr. Ridgeway, sir, it is now, now while you are here that they are dangerous.”

Mr. Ridgeway shook his head.

“Unfortunately not.” He took a paper out of his pocket and handed it over to O’Brien. Lawrence looked over his shoulder and slowly spelled out the words of a curiously printed anonymous letter. It was written on heavy wrapping paper, and read:

“This is not a threat. It is simply to tell you what will happen. If the crown jewels that are lying in the Treasury Building and the papers intended for a certain republic are taken out of this country, that day, mind you, the President of the United States will forfeit his life and so will you. You will remember this, because it is the truth. Make no mistakes.”

O’Brien whistled. “So that’s your little scheme, is it?” He pondered. “Of course it will be easy to take care of the president,” he said. “And you will be safe up in the air, but no one knows what else they will do. I think it’s up to O’Brien to get after them. Well, thanks to this lad, I know where to find most of the gang. When do you start?”

“I want to go tomorrow,” said Mr. Ridgeway. “You see we have really two journeys to make; two errands to accomplish, and the sooner we do accomplish them, the better it will be. I will go from here to the White House and have my papers put in order, and have the custodian of the jewels ready with them tomorrow morning.”

“Do you specially mind when you start?” asked O’Brien. “I wish you could set the time for evening. I want a whole day to get hold of my little family party. Even if I start tonight, it may take me that long.”

“Not at all; not at all!” said Mr. Ridgeway. “It makes no difference, only you can see by this letter that those miscreants must be locked up.”

“I will attend to that if I have to have a fight with them myself,” said O’Brien.

“Then let us be going,” said Mr. Ridgeway. “Lawrence, do you want to come down as far as Pennsylvania Avenue and keep the car there for me?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Lawrence.

When Mr. Ridgeway left the car a safe distance up the broad glittering avenue, Lawrence settled back and proceeded to enjoy himself. One of the most beautiful thoroughfares in the world stretched before him, and along it went representatives of every country and clime. He was intent on the pageant when a whining voice at his elbow recalled him to the present. A beggar, ragged, blear eyed, and out of place in the dazzling cleanness of the avenue, had shuffled up to the curb and was begging.

As Lawrence looked at the man, some strange picture in his brain, long forgotten and hideous, suddenly sprang into view. Where had he ever seen the face before him? Where had he heard that peculiar, deep, grating voice?

As he stared, the man looked him straight in the face for a minute and Lawrence saw a deep, three-cornered scar on the man’s chin. On the spur of the moment he leaned down, and said:

“Moll certainly soaked you a good one, didn’t she?” at the same time pointing to the scar.

The man leaped back with an oath. “Who are you?” he demanded, and then, “Moll’s dead,” he added.

“I know,” said Lawrence.

“Who are you?” repeated the man.

“Snooks,” said Lawrence.

“Dressed like that, sittin’ in an auto?” cried the beggar. “You must ’a’ found your folks!”

“No; I am driving for the man who owns this car,” said Lawrence, his sense of caution keeping back the facts of the case. “I never found my folks.”

“You want to advertise,” said the man. “Tell you all I know about ’em for a dollar. Thanks! See that there Moll, she read about gettin’ ransoms for folks and she hired out for nursemaid. I never knew who to. She didn’t trust me, an’ me married to her lawful! But one day ’bout sundown she sneaked in with two kids dressed dandy. And I ast her what was it she had, and she said, ‘Oh, about two hundred thousand dollars.’ I didn’t like it, an’ I said so, so she got mad and walked off with the two little beggars down toward the river.

“She told me afterwards. She took off the little fellers’ shoes and stockin’s. It was ragin’ hot, mid-summer; and she laid them on the bank with her own hat and their little bunnits, and then she let ’em paddle. They just could walk. How she told it, she just turned round, and there was one of ’em out in the current a-sinkin’, and the other rollin’ down the bank. She grabbed him, but the other had went; and she was so scared she comes runnin’ home and there we was with another kid, which was you. Moll didn’t go away nor nothin’, but we kep’ close about it, because it might ’a’ meant the chair. They found the bunnits, and nex’ day or so they got the other kid’s body. And the papers said Moll and the two kids was all drownded. But you wasn’t drownded. And Moll used to say that woman in the pitcher Moll had in her bag would’ve gave a million dollars to get a track of you, but we didn’t darst do a thing. Besides,” said the man, “there’s a plenty of kids!”

“Can’t you remember the name of the people?” asked Lawrence anxiously.

With a look of sly cunning, the man shook his head. “No, I don’t remember. They don’t want you by now, and you are all right. Let sleepin’ dogs lay is my motter. I ain’t goin’ to put my head in no noose to oblige anybody. What they ever done for me, I say?”

“I won’t tell on you,” begged Lawrence.

The man looked around, then as he saw a procession of some sort moving gaily up the avenue, he said, “No, you don’t get no chance. You are doin’ well. Let sleepin’ dogs lay,” and dodged quickly across the line of the procession and was lost to sight, just a miserable human fragment on the tide of humanity.

Lawrence, his brain whirling, pressed a hand over the pocket containing the photograph.

“Oh, Pretty, Pretty!” he said in a whisper. “Are you my mother, dear?”