“You needn't finish the name,” broke in Thornsensel. “I want to warn you again not to take them into your confidence,—not even in the smallest of matters.”
“His brother is a general in the Bavarian——”
“It doesn't matter. I know all that. And one of her brothers is in the Reichstag. But you must not overlook the fact that a great many of these people are loyal to America. That is a point you don't seem able to get through your head, Elberon. The worst enemy, the direst peril we have to contend with is the American-German, if you grasp the distinction. No one seems to have used the hyphen in just that way, Elberon, but there is such a thing as the American-German, and we've got to steer clear of him. He's not as uncommon as you may think, either. This man you were with last night is one. He would turn you over to the authorities in a flash if he got a breath of the truth. A word to the wise, Elberon, means a word to you.”
“A man is one thing or the other,” said the other, flushing. “He's either a German or an American. There's nothing in the hyphen.”
“You're quite right,” agreed Thorsensel. “The man you were with last night is an American in spite of his name and his antecedents. I happen to know. Somewhere in this city there is a list of the people I define as American-Germans. It is a rather formidable list, let me tell you. They happen to be traitors, damn them.”
“Traitors? I thought you said they were loyal.”
“You'd see what would happen to them if they ever set foot on German soil,” said Thorsensel, and it was not difficult, even for the stolid Elberon, to see what he meant by loyalty.
An hour later the meeting came to an end, and the men went their several ways, unsuspected by the troubled, harassed watch-dogs of the nation. In that hour they had confidently, almost contemptuously, forwarded the consummation of other enterprises even more startling than the blowing up of the Reynolds plant. Remote assassinations were drawn a trifle nearer; plans leading to the bombing of New York by aeroplanes that were to rise up out of the sea from monster submarines; a new and not to be denied smashing of the Welland Canal; well-timed collisions of ships in the lower Hudson, and other basins, with results more stupendous than anything yet conceived; deceptive peace propaganda for the guileless and unwary American proletariat; subtle interference in the Halls of Congress; almost everything, it may be said, except the transfer of valuable mines in Brazil. That trifling detail was left to another day.
Within the next hour, a message was on its way through the air to far-off Berlin, giving in singularly accurate figures the military losses sustained by the Allies at a spot in New Jersey recently occupied by the great Reynolds concern.