"Seki San, have you got a big enderlope?" June asked the question from the door-step where he was sitting with his chin in his hand and a very worried look in his face.

It was two days after his visit to Monsieur and the big letter was still buttoned in his blouse. He had started to mail it as soon as he reached home, but just as he was ready to drop it in the box, he discovered that every "s" turned the wrong way! It was a dreadful blow to his pride, for the rest of the address was quite imposing with big flourishing capitals that stood like generals over the small letters, and dots that would have surely put out all the "i's" had they fallen on them. He never could send Monsieur's letter with the "s's" looking backward, he must try to set them straight again.

So, very carelessly, in order not to excite suspicion, he asked Seki for pen and ink. He had written many letters to his mother and father, but always in pencil, and Seki hesitated about giving him ink.

She said: "Our ink not like your American ink, live and quick as water, it hard like paint. We not use pen, but brush like which you write pictures. I sink it more better you use pencil."

But June insisted and when he gained his point, he carried the small box into the garden and took out his letter. The jar containing his goldfish was close by, so he dipped his stick of paint into the water and rubbed it vigorously on the paint box. At the last moment just as his brush was poised in the air, he had a moment of misgiving, "maybe 's's' do turn that way!" he said, but the brush full of paint was a temptation not to be resisted, so he took each little "s" by its tail and turned it inside out. The paper was soft and thin and took the ink like blotting paper. June watched with dismay as the lines spread into ugly blots, and when he tried to make the letters plainer he only made the blots bigger until they all seemed to join hands and go dancing over the envelope in fiendish glee at his discomfort.

For two days he had tried to think of a way out of the difficulty but before he could find one he would get interested in something else and forget about the letter. It was only when it felt stiff inside of his blouse that he remembered, and then he would stop playing and try again to solve the problem. At last in desperation he appealed to Seki San for an envelope.

"It is not so much big," she said, bringing out a long narrow envelope and a roll of paper. "Why you want to write such big letter to your mother? She coming home soon!"

"It isn't big enough," said June fretfully, then an idea struck him. "Seki, I want to go see Monsieur to-day."

Seki San sat down on the step beside him and shook her head positively:

"No, no," she said, "not to-day, nor to-morrow, nor any day. He is not a good man, I made mistakes in letting you go."

"He is a good man!" cried June indignantly, "he told me stories, and gave me lots of things."

"I tell you 'bout him, June," said Seki San. "One time Monsieur very skilful smart man in Tokyo. He write pictures of the forts and show the Japanese how to find coast in time of war. He know more plenty than anybody about the coast and the mines. Then he is not behave right, and get sent out of the service, and he get sick in the hands so he can make no more maps, and he come down here and live all alone by himself. That was long time ago, but yesterday a high up messenger come from Tokyo, and asked for Monsieur CarrÉ. The Emperor have desire to buy his old maps and reports, and get his help in making new plans. When the messenger come, they say Monsieur fall back on the bed very white and afraid, and say he will not give up the papers. Then messenger say maybe he has sold his papers to a foreign country and he get very much angry, and say if Monsieur CarrÉ do not give the papers in twenty-four hours, he will have him arrested and take him to Tokyo. Still Monsieur keep the tight lips, and a guard is waiting outside his house."

With troubled eyes, June listened to every word. "Did he sell the papers, Seki?" he asked anxiously.

"He will not say," said Seki, "they say he will not say, but it was a bad, wicked act if he sold our secrets, and he may die for it!"

June stirred restlessly, and the packet in his blouse caught in his belt. He put up his hand to straighten it, and as he did so, a startled look of inquiry passed over his face. Could those papers in the long envelope have anything to do with Monsieur's present trouble? Why had Monsieur not wanted him to tell? Had his mistake about the "s's" anything to do with it all? The secret, which at first had seemed such a mysterious and delightful possession, suddenly grew into a great and terrible burden that he longed to cast at Seki's feet and ask her to share.

But the thought of telling what he knew never crossed his mind. He had given his word, and he felt that to break it would be to forfeit forever his chance of becoming a soldier. But something must be done, he must go to Monsieur and tell him the truth at once.

"Seki," he said persuasively, "Monsieur is sick in bed, don't you think it would be nice for me to take him a little cake?"

"You can not ever go there any more," repeated Seki San positively. "I did a mistakes in letting you go."

In vain June pleaded, every argument that he could think of he brought to bear, but Seki was firm. By and by he began to cry, at first softly, begging between the sobs, then when he got angry he cried very loud and declared over and over that he would go.

Seki San was amazed at his naughtiness. It was the first time since his mother left that she had known him to be disobedient. When persuasion and coaxing proved in vain, she carried him into the house and carefully closing the paper screens left him alone. Here he lay on the floor and cried louder than ever. Seki San and her mother and the old man next door stood on the outside and peeped through the cracks, gravely discussing the situation. Even Tomi sniffed uneasily, and gave sharp, unhappy barks.

After ever and ever so long the cries grew fainter and gradually ceased, and Seki peeping around the screen whispered to the others to be very still as he was going to sleep.

June lay quiet on his face, but he was not asleep. Once in a while he opened his eyes a very little and peeped out, then he closed them quickly and listened. By and by he heard Seki go back to her work, and the old man next door hobble across the garden. Inch by inch June crawled over the mats until he reached the screen, which he carefully slid back. After waiting for a few breathless minutes, he reached out and got his shoes from the door-step and put them on. Back of the house he could hear Seki singing at her work, and not six feet away Tomi lay snoozing in the sun. Softly and cautiously he slipped out of the house, across the strip of a garden where all the leaves seemed to be shaking their heads at him, through a narrow passageway, then out of the gate that divided the little world he knew from the vast unknown world that lay beyond.