Published in 1919 and originally titled “The Laugh” and published serially in Lloyd’s Magazine from December 1918 to February 1920. Set in Marseille in the 1870s during the Third Carlist War. The characters of the novel are supporters of the Spanish Pretender Carlos, Duke of Madrid. Curiously, the novel features a person referred to as “Lord X”, whose activities as arms smuggler resemble those of the Carlist politician Tirso de Olaz‡bal y Lardiz‡bal, Count of Arbelaiz.