"Oh, that's all right, of course. A mere matter of form; and it will be ready to-morrow, I expect. But one's not much use without the other."
"Johann could use yours, Oscar," suggested Rosa.
"Not on any account," I protested. "Herr Feldmann might get into no end of a mess."
"It isn't that, Lassen. I'm so well known all along the line that it would be hopeless. You'd be spotted in a moment. I'd run the risk like a shot otherwise; I know how Rosa feels about it."
"What can we do?" she exclaimed, turning to me.
"Make the best of it. Nessa must go without me, if I can't get off; and there's no chance of that tomorrow. Will the papers have a definite date for the journey?"
"I gave the date we agreed, but I dare say I could get that altered to allow us a margin of a day or two, perhaps a week; but then this wedding is the excuse; and of course that date can't be altered. But I could see Miss Caldicott into Holland all right."
"What, with a false passport! It's awfully good of you to offer, but I'm sure she wouldn't hear of it for a second. No; we must try the other way."
He shook his head ominously at the mention of von Gratzen. "I know a lot about him, and I wouldn't put a pfennig's reliance on any hope from that quarter," he said emphatically. "I don't say he won't do anything, mind you, because one never knows what he will do next. He's one of the sharpest and ablest men in the country; we all admit that; but----" and he gestured and shrugged his shoulders.
"Unreliable?" He nodded. "In a shifty unscrupulous way, you mean?"
"Oh dear, no; not that at all," he said vigorously. "Individual. That is the best word. If he thinks a thing should be done, he does it whether it is according to official rules or not. That is not German. He is not thorough, as we understand the word."
There remained only the other plan--that Nessa and I should get away in some disguise, and at a tentative suggestion about false papers, Feldmann laughed.
"You will easily understand that when a people are subject to so many rules and regulations as we are, plenty of men set their wits to work to break them. False identification cards are as common as false coins, and if you knew where to go, a few marks would buy one, or a genuine one either, for that matter," he declared; but he made no offer to get them, and it was better not to press the thing farther then.