'I have considered that, Sir,' he said. 'I have given some thought
to the pecooliar psychology of the great German nation. As I read
them they're as cunning as cats, and if you play the feline game they
will outwit you every time. Yes, Sir, they are no slouches at sleuth-
work. If I were to buy a pair of false whiskers and dye my hair and
dress like a Baptist parson and go into Germany on the peace
racket, I guess they'd be on my trail like a knife, and I should be
shot as a spy inside of a week or doing solitary in the Moabite
prison. But they lack the larger vision. They can be bluffed, Sir.
With your approval I shall visit the Fatherland as John S. Blenkiron,
once a thorn in the side of their brightest boys on the other side.
But it will be a different John S. I reckon he will have experienced
a change of heart. He will have come to appreciate the great, pure,
noble soul of Germany, and he will be sorrowing for his past like a
converted gun-man at a camp meeting. He will be a victim of the
meanness and perfidy of the British Government. I am going to
have a first-class row with your Foreign Office about my passport,
and I am going to speak harsh words about them up and down this
metropolis. I am going to be shadowed by your sleuths at my port
of embarkation, and I guess I shall run up hard against the British
Legations in Scandinavia. By that time our Teutonic friends will
have begun to wonder what has happened to John S., and to think
that maybe they have been mistaken in that child. So, when I get to
Germany they will be waiting for me with an open mind. Then I
judge my conduct will surprise and encourage them. I will confide
to them valuable secret information about British preparations, and
I will show up the British lion as the meanest kind of cur. You may
trust me to make a good impression. After that I'll move eastwards,
to see the demolition of the British Empire in those parts. By the
way, where is the rendezvous?'