German spies in England! Who ever heard such wild rubbish! This completed the bitterness of public opinion against me. The Press unanimously declared that I had spoken wilful untruths; my statements were refuted in leading articles, and in consequence of my endeavour to indicate a grave national peril, a certain section of the Press even went so far as to _boycott my writings altogether_! Indeed, more than one first-class London newspaper which had regularly published my novels--I could name them, but I will not--refused to print any more of my work! I was, at the same time, inundated with letters from persons who openly abused me and called me a liar, and more than one anonymous communication, which I have still kept, written in red ink and probably from spies themselves, for the caligraphy is distinctly foreign, threatened me with death. Such was my reward for daring to awaken the country to a sense of danger. It caused me some amusement, I must confess, yet it also taught me a severe lesson--the same bitter lesson which the British public, alas! taught Lord Roberts, who was so strenuously endeavouring to indicate the danger of our unpreparedness. It told me one plain truth, a truth spoken in the words of the noble General himself, who, with a sigh, one day said to me, "Nothing, I fear, will arouse the public to a sense of danger until they one day awaken and find war declared." On the day following my speech, the German Press, which published reports of it, called me "the German-hater," by which epithet I am still known in the Fatherland. The editor of a certain London daily newspaper told me to my face: "There are no spies in England"; adding, "You are a fool to alarm the public by such a statement. Nobody believes you." I, however, held my own views, and felt that it was my duty to act in one of two ways. Either I should place the confidential information and documents which I had gathered, mostly from German sources, in the hands of the Press, and thus vindicate myself; or give them over to the Government, and allow them to deal with them in a befitting and confidential manner. The latter attitude I deemed to be the correct one, as an Englishman--even though I have a foreign name. At the War Office the officials at first sniffed, and then, having carefully examined the documents, saw at once that I had discovered a great and serious truth. For this reason I have never sought, until now, to vindicate myself in the public eye; yet I have the satisfaction of knowing that from that moment, until this hour of writing, a certain nameless department, known only by a code-number,--I will refer to it as the Confidential Department,--has been unremitting in its efforts to track down German secret agents and their deadly work.