"Yes? How, may I ask?"
"I'll rush out into the other room an' try to get to the street. If there's anythin' in the notion we have, they'll turn me back."
"You might try that," smiled Ned, and the officer clapped a hand on the boy's shoulder and declared that he was a "brick."
So Jimmie hustled out into the front office. The listeners heard sharp words, and then a slight scuffling of feet. Then next instant the boy was pushed back through the doorway.
"What is the trouble?" asked the marine of the assistant, whose flushed face showed in the half-open doorway.
"You'll all have to be identified before you can leave here," was the curt reply. "You have asked for important state dispatches, and we want to know what your motive is."
"My motive is to get them," replied Ned, coolly.
"Wait until you prove your right to them," said the other, and the door was slammed shut. Ned stepped back to the window and looked out into the court. The walls were four stories high, and there seemed to be no passage out of the box-like place. The officer suggested that he force his way through the outer office and reach the American consul, but Ned did not approve of this. He thought there must be some other way. Then a hint of that other way came from the court in the call of an owl.
"That's a Boy Scout signal, and not a bird!" almost shouted Jimmie.