People often ask me, "What is the essential qualification of a good spy?" My answer is, "It requires an _accomplished liar_." I mean by that, a man that can _successfully practice deception_. I do not mean by that that a man must be an _habitual liar_. There is nothing that I despise more than a man whose word can not be relied upon. Whether deception, as I have practiced it in the discharge of my duty as a spy, is a moral wrong, I shall not here attempt to argue. Of this much I am sure: it has many times saved my life, and perhaps the lives of thousands of others, besides saving immense sums of money to the Government. Whatever of the art of deception I possess has been somewhat shaped by the chilling discipline administered to me by my father. An incident or two from my early life will serve to show what that discipline was, and what effect it may have had in my after career. In my childhood days I was noted as "a mischievous boy." I suppose that means that I was constantly devising or hunting some sort of diversion. My father usually kept wrought nails of his own manufacture to sell to his customers. These I used to get and drive into the fence, firewood, shade-trees, or any thing else that came in my way. This my father had forbidden me to do, but sometimes the impulse of the moment would cause me to break over, and as often I would be whipped for my disobedience. One day, as my father was going away from home he charged me particularly not to go into the shop during his absence. While he was gone I became so much interested in play that I never thought of going to the shop. Near the close of the day my father returned, and it so happened that he needed a few wrought nails to use the first thing after his arrival. On going to the shop after some, he found his nail-box empty. His last impression, on leaving, had been that I _would_ get them, and now his first impression was that I _had_ got them. Consequently, I was immediately summoned to give an account of them. "My son, what made you go into the shop during my absence?" inquired my father. "Father, I did not go into the shop," I replied. "Somebody has been there and carried off my nails. Nobody else was here but you; you _must be_ the one that got them." "I did not get them, father; neither did I go to the shop. I certainly did not."