"At the Queen's Hotel, at Leith, one day I overheard these words from a man speaking in German. 'What's this! Your Highness's servants--when did they come North?' Now one of these I have met several times. I have travelled with him from Antwerp, and I was in his company between Leith and London. He was of a cheerful disposition, and played the violin well, but would not allow any one to go into his cabin, not even the steward! One day, while he was playing to the passengers on the promenade deck, and the sailors were washing down the poop deck, I had to go into his berth to shut his port-hole; to my surprise I found that he had been working out the draft of a plan, and was marking in the coast defence stations, and all the information he had obtained from the ship's officers and passengers. There were also various other drawings of the Forth and other bridges, and plans of the sea coast from the Firth of Forth to Yarmouth, while in his box were all kinds of mathematical instruments, together with some envelopes addressed to Count von X. [the name is given] of Bremen. He told me that he was going to London for a year's engagement at a music hall, yet, strangely enough, two weeks later I found this same German on the Carron Company's steamer _Avon_ bound for Grangemouth. For some time I lost all trace of him, but last October I met the same German at the new Dock at Kirkcaldy, posing as a photographer. At that time the name on his bag was H. Shindler. We had a drink together, but, on my asking why he had changed his profession, he laughed mysteriously, and admitted that he had made a long tour of England and Wales, taking many interesting pictures. Each time I met him he had considerably altered his appearance, and the last I saw of him was when I saw him into the train on his way to Dunfermline." Yet another I pick out at haphazard. It is from an actor whose name is well known, and is, as are all the others, at the disposal of any official inquirers. He writes to me: