"Are you an honest young man and a good patriot?"

I could produce no credentials for honesty or patriotism, but hoped
that I might not fail in either.

"I suppose you have come to talk to me about my statistics," he said.

I admitted that this was my mission.

"They are unimportant," he said, "compared with what I have to tell
you. I am going to talk to you about Germany. The English people
ought to know what I have learnt during a year's experience in that
country, where I have lived all the time in the company of public
officials. Sir, it seems to me that the English people do not know that
the entire genius of intellectual Germany is directed to a war against
England. It dominates their thoughts and dreams, and the whole
activity of their national intelligence."

For an hour the little bald-headed man spoke to me of all he had
heard and learnt of Germany's enmity to England during twelve
months in official circles. He desired to give this information to an
English newspaper of standing and authority. He thought the English
people had a right to know.

I went back to my office more disturbed than I cared to admit even to
myself. There had been a kind of terror in the voice of the little man
who had found time for other interests besides his "statistical survey
of Europe." It seemed that he believed himself in the possession of
an enormous and terrible secret threatening the destiny of our