"Because if you are," I said, "perhaps you wouldn't mind holding on a minute. The strap of my truncheon has (tug) got fouled (tug) with my (tug) braces."

   I got it out at last and stroked it lovingly. "I can't start before I'm ready," I said. "Rather neat bit of wood—what? Chose it myself at Bow Street. I take a 13½-ounce racquet, you know."

   "You seem," he said, "to have given up caring whether I am a German spy or not."

   "Your mistake," I said; "I was merely gaining time to size you up properly. Better take your pince-nez off. Broken glass is such a nuisance, don't you think?"

   He ignored the friendly hint. "As a matter of fact," he said, "I

    am

   partly German."

   "Show me the German part," I said, gripping the corrugations of my truncheon more tightly. "I'm a little pressed for time."

   "And partly French," he went on.

   "That's rather awkward," I said.

   "And I was born in Russia."

   "Worse and worse," I said.

   "And spent practically the first twenty years of my life in Italy."

   "This," I said, "is the absolute boundary. Yours is a case for the New Prize Courts."

   "But you haven't formally arrested me yet," he said.

   "True," I said, "I'm just coming to that part, but at the moment I've forgotten the opening movements of the half-nelson."

   "My wife," he said musingly, "will be very annoyed. She's extremely English, you know."

   "Look here," I said, "I really think I shall let you go, after all. So little of you is the enemy, so much the friend, that I don't care to 

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