"You know, of course," Werner took an audible sip of lemonade, "that a bargain is a bargain and that the contract Wolf signed is binding."
"Ordinarily, yes," said Roger, "but I have an idea that before I'm through with you, you'll be glad to let go."
"For heaven's sake, Roger!" cried Ernest irritably, throwing his cigarette in the fireplace, and taking a quick turn up and down the room, "don't start a row."
"If you mean not to lose my temper, I can promise that," returned Roger, "but Germany can never have my solar apparatus."
"How're you going to help yourself?" asked Ernest, with an ugly edge to his voice.
"There are ways! Mr. Werner, Von Minden was a part of Germany's great system, was he not, for exploiting America? He was one of your agents and his job was to outline the desert empire Germany plans to take over. But being German, like Ernest's father who never will take the human element into consideration, you didn't count on the desert's sending your poor tool crazy, so he blabbed. Gustav is your watch-dog and spy, keeping you in touch at present with all my doings. Your own activities, outside of these minor ones, I imagine, center round the banking and educational interests of America. You've seen to it that our high schools and universities produce students that admire Germany. I must say that you have been highly successful up to now. But the superman stuff is a bit thick, Mr. Werner. It makes our American gorge rise in our throats."
Roger fingered his cold pipe, swallowed several times, looked out the open door where he could see Charley at the bars, rubbing Peter's head, then went on: "What you've done to Ernest is obvious. He's the sweetest tempered, most easily influenced chap in the world. You caught him in New York after he'd failed with the Smithsonian--probably after some spy in the Smithsonian had put you wise, and fed him up with the superman idea and he, poor mut, fell for it."
"Roger!" shouted Ernest. "You can't talk about me as if I were feeble-minded."
"But hang it, Ern, you have been!" exclaimed Roger. Then, with a little break in his voice, "I tell you, you've been thinking and speaking treason and I won't have it! I won't have it!"
"Come! Come! Mr. Moore!" said Werner; "supposing what you've surmised should turn out to be true. Might is right in this world."
"You can't draw me into a discussion of ethics, Mr. Werner. Ernest and I'll have that out afterward. I'm just telling you this, that Germany can't have my solar device and it can't have Ernest. There's enough evidence in that tin dispatch box of Von Minden's, Mr. Werner, almost to persuade Congress to declare war on your super-fatherland. There's enough evidence in that box to make headlines in every American paper for a month. What it would do to pro-German sentiment in this country is a caution."