Germany has played a consistent game throughout. She has sought to use all the existing weaknesses of the world for her own purposes—all the rivalries, all the fears, all the antipathies, she has utilized as fuel for her own fire. And yet, although she has played the game with the utmost foresight, with a skill that is admirable in spite of its perverse uses, and with an unfailing assurance of success—she has come to the fourth year of the Great War with the fact of failure staring her in the face. But she has not given up. You may be sure that she has not given up. CHAPTER XII. _The last stand of German intrigue. Germany’s spy system in America. What is coming?_ As I write these last few pages three clippings from recent newspapers lie before me on my desk. One of them tells of the new era of good feeling that exists between the governments of Mexico and the United States, and speaks of the alliance of Latin-American republics against German autocracy. Another tells how the first contingent of American troops have landed in France, after a successful battle with a submarine fleet. And a third speaks of the victorious advance of the troops of Democratic Russia, after the world had begun to believe that Russia had forgotten the war in her new freedom. I read them over again and I think that each one of these clippings, if true, writes “failure” once again upon the book of German diplomacy. I remember a day not so very many months ago, when a man with whom I had some business in—for me—less quiet days, came to see me. “B. E. is in town,” he said quietly. “He says he must see you. Can you meet him at the —— Restaurant to-night?” Boy-Ed! I was not surprised that he should be in this country, for I knew the man’s audacity. But what could he want of me? Well, it would do no harm to meet him, I thought, and, anyway, my curiosity was aroused. I nodded. “I’ll be there,” I said. “At what hour?” “Six-thirty,” my friend replied. “It’s only for a minute. He is leaving to-night.” That evening for the first time in two years I saw the man who had done his share in the undermining of America. I did not ask him what his presence in this country meant, and needless to say, he did not inform me. Our business was of a different character. I had just arranged to write a series of newspaper articles exposing the operations of the Kaiser’s secret service and Boy-Ed tried to induce me to suppress them. “I cannot do it,” I told him. But the captain showed a remarkable knowledge of my private affairs. “Under your contract,” he said, “the articles cannot be published until you have endorsed them. As you have not yet affixed your signature to them, you can suppress them by merely withholding your endorsement.” This I declined to do and our conversation ended.