Harking back to before the South African War, we find that Paul Kruger, the late President of the South African Republic, was a great believer in an efficient up-to-date Secret Service department, and vast sums were expended by him with little, if any, inquiry or vouching. Messrs. D. Blackburn and Captain W. Waithman Caddell, in their book on "Secret Service in South Africa," record how Tjaard Kruger, a son of the President of the Transvaal Republic, who was for a short time Chief of the Secret Service Bureau, paid £2,800 in one afternoon in 1906, out of the many thousands of pounds in gold coinage which he always kept in his office, to casual callers only, to men who came accredited by some person in authority as being able to supply valuable information. Tjaard Kruger was succeeded in office by a most clever and interesting celebrity, Dr. Leyds, Secretary of State, who was the only man who made the department a success. He showed the unfailing tact of the born diplomat. He was a great reader of character and formed a pretty accurate estimate of a person in a surprisingly short time. He conducted his affairs so delicately and diplomatically that he won universal esteem and the staunchest and most loyal adherents. He would hand over disagreeable work to a subordinate so gracefully that it gave the impression that he was relegating the work, not because it irked him, but because he had found a man more capable than himself--the man whom he had long sought. Dr. Leyds' letters of instructions to his agents were clear, precise, and exacting, and provided for every possible contingency; yet had they fallen into the hands of the unauthorised they would have conveyed little. These letters bespoke the diplomat. They would have come safely out of an investigation by a committee of suspicious spy-hunters. When he required to "draw" any person he would instruct his agents to ascertain carefully that person's tastes, habits, prejudices, and amusements. These he would study to the minutest trifle, and by skilful play upon a weakness, or by the evidence of a similar taste, he would successfully penetrate to the most exclusive and jealously guarded sanctum sanctorum.