Within a week or ten days an accurate report was secretly handed to me of the exact number, nationality, and rating of every man on board the enemy vessel. It also contained addenda giving the name and business of every visitor thereto, and the duration of each visit; this afforded matter for cogitation, reflection, and thought. My next requirement was a roughly summed-up estimate of the characteristics of each person I designated, with all possible information and detail concerning their believed weaknesses, whims, fancies, hobbies, ambitions, or failings, which I persisted in procuring concerning every person I could on the before-mentioned list. This was a long and more difficult task. Pride, conceit, alcohol, women, and money figured against one or the other. The two former would seem the easiest to work upon, but in the end it was the latter which affected the _débàcle_. Having laid well my plans, which promised almost certain successful results, it was advisable for me to depart from the town and district in order that matters might be permitted to operate successfully without any possible chance of failure through some remote suspicion being hatched and developed from my presence. It was far better for me to watch from a distance, to observe the effects of palm-oil penetrate deeper and yet deeper, until that which I was most anxious to get hold of, namely, material extracts from the log of the recent voyage of this important vessel, had been brought ashore and communicated; and, what was most important of all, the exact number of mines she had laid in British waters, with precise latitude and longitude of such laying. It was expensive, but it was worth the outlay many times over. It would have been undoubtedly a very great surprise indeed to the kultured Hun sea-pirates, had they only known how their most jealously-guarded secrets were thus so easily opened up. When in England some months after this information had been communicated, I had an opportunity of interviewing some officers and members of the crews on board various minesweeping vessels which had been employed to remove these pests from navigable waters. They were men engaged to harvest what the _Berlin_ was alleged to have sown near Tory Island, which lies off the north-west coast of Ireland, and not far from the all-important Loch Swilly. The first and second fleet sent there to act upon the information which had been collected in the manner hereinbefore described seem to have returned to their respective bases and reported there were no mines to be found. But whilst those in authority were debating or doubting the accuracy of the original information collected abroad, proof positive soon convinced them.