"It's just a touch of Oxford left in you," he complained. "For myself, I know that madame would be excellent company, and I am perfectly certain that mademoiselle would let me whisper--discreetly--in her ear. Alas! it is a lost opportunity, and from here we go--to who knows what?"

He was suddenly serious. Julien looked at him in surprise. They were standing on the pavement outside. Kendricks consulted his watch.

"You have courage, I know, my friend," he said. "That is one reason why I choose you for my companion to-night. I have two tickets for a German socialist gathering here. The tickets were obtained with extraordinary difficulty. I know that your German is pure and I can trust to my own. From this minute, not a word in any other language, if you please."

"I am really not sure," Julien objected, "that I want to go to a German socialist meeting. In any case, I am hungry."

"Hungry!" Kendricks exclaimed. "Hungry! What ingratitude! But be calm, my friend," he added, taking Julien's arm, "there will be sausages and beer where we are going."

"In that case," Julien agreed, "I am with you. Which way?"

"Almost opposite us," Kendricks declared. "Come along."

They paused outside a brilliantly lit cafe with a German name. Julien looked at it doubtfully.

"Surely they don't hold meetings in a place like this?" he muttered.

Kendricks lowered his voice.

"We go into the cafe first," he said. "The meeting is in a private room. Come."

They pushed open the swinging doors and entered the place.

CHAPTER XVIII

A MEETING OF SOCIALISTS

The _brasserie_ into which the two men pushed their way was smaller and less ornate than the one which they had last visited. Many of the tables, too, were laid for supper. The tone of the place was still entirely Teutonic. Kendricks and his companion seated themselves at a table.

"You will eat sausage?" Kendricks asked.

"I will eat anything," Julien replied.

"It is better," Kendricks remarked. "Here from the first we may be watched. We are certainly observed. Be sure that you do not let fall a single word of English. It might be awkward afterwards."

"It's a beastly language," Julien declared, "but the beer and sausages help. How many of the people here will be at the meeting?"

"Not a hundredth part of them," Kendricks answered. "It was a terrible job to get these tickets and I wouldn't like to guarantee now that we have them that we get there. Remember, if any questions are asked, you're an American, the editor or envoy of _The Coming Age._"

"The dickens I am!" Julien exclaimed. "Where am I published?"

"In New York; you're a new issue."

Julien ate sausages and bread and butter steadily for several minutes.

"To me," he announced, "there is something more satisfying about a meal of this description than that two-franc dinner where you stole my chicken."

"You have Teutonic instincts, without a doubt," Kendricks declared, "but after all, why not a light dinner and an appetite for supper? Better for the digestion, better for the pocket, better for passing the time. What are you staring at?"

Julien was looking across the room with fixed eyes.