“No, I would not have either one of you different. But I fancy Kent and I are in for lives of anxiety.”
“Well, he likes us the way we are, too,” declared Judy, blushing.
“Well, I have two things to say:” declared Mr. Kean, giving a mighty yawn, “I am glad I let you have a Parisian education if with it you can make clever enough sketches to catch these German spies; and the other is, that it is high time we were all of us in bed.”
Madame Mitzel, before she was sentenced to the imprisonment that she so richly deserved, requested an interview with Judy, which was granted, although Judy was most reluctant.
“I can’t bear to see her again! She looked like a snake caught in a net.”
“I—want—you—to tell—Mrs. Green—that—I—am sorry for—her to—know—about me—That is all! If—I could—have—had a woman—like that—to—be—my friend—in my—youth—I would have—been different.” She spoke in the faltering manner she had used at Wellington, one she employed in speaking English, and then she plunged into voluble German, so rapid that Judy could hardly follow her:
“But you! You have outwitted me and I cannot but admire you for it, but I hate you with all my heart.”
“That is all right! I’d rather have your hate than your love! I’ll tell Molly, though.”
Before we leave the Misels, or Mitzels, for good, I must tell you that the shipment of paint arrived at Wellington as the mysterious dealer had informed Monsieur Jean Misel it would. One of the Secret Service men remained in Wellington to receive it. It was light grey, as was promised; at least, it was marked light grey on the outside of the six large cans. On opening these cans, which I can assure you the detective did with the utmost caution, many things besides paint were disclosed,—in fact, there was no paint there at all. He found various chemicals, necessary for the making of the modern bomb; poisons of all sorts, and innocent looking little vials containing deadly germs. Those six cans if let loose on the unsuspecting community would have caused as much damage as the imps in Pandora’s box.
Even Molly had to confess that the Misels were not very good persons, and when her husband gave her to understand that her own little Mildred and Dodo might have been poisoned by polluted water had the foreigners accomplished all they no doubt intended to with some of those bottled germs, the young mother came to the conclusion that they were not only not very good but they were extremely wicked, and perhaps just imprisonment was too mild a punishment to be meted out to them.