Here is where the value of the minor bits of information comes in. A trainman tells, for instance, that he has seen a trainload of soldiers that day, upon such and such a line. A similar report comes in from elsewhere. Meantime another agent has reported that a certain packing house has shipped to the government so many tons of beef; while still another announces the delivery at a particular point of a totally different kind of supplies. Do you not see how all these facts, taken together, and coupled with an accurate knowledge of transportation conditions and of the geographical structure of the country would constitute an important indication of an enemy’s plans, even failing the possession of any absolute secrets? Do you not suppose that weeks before you were aware that any United States soldiers had sailed for France, the Germans might have known of all the preparations that were being made and could deduce accurately the number of troops that were sailing, and many facts of importance about their equipment. There is no need for the betrayal of secrets for this kind of information to become known. It is a mere matter of detective work. But mark one feature of it. These facts are communicated by different spies—not to a central clearing house of information in this country, as has been surmised, but to various points outside the country for transmission to the Great General Staff. They are duplicated endlessly by different agents. They are sent to many different people for transmission. _And even if half of the reports were lost, or half of the spies were discovered, there would still be a sufficient number left to carry on their work successfully._ Germany does not depend upon one spy alone for even the smallest item. Always the work is duplicated. Always the same information is being secured by several men, not one of whom knows any of the others; and always that information is transmitted to Berlin through so many diverse channels that it is impossible for the most vigilant secret service in the world to prevent a goodly part of it from reaching its destination. How that information is transmitted I shall tell in a moment. First, I wish to explain how more important facts are secured—the secret plans of the government, such, for instance, as the course which had been decided upon for the squadron which carried the first American troops to France. It is obvious that such facts as these could not have been deduced from a mass of miscellaneous reports. That secret must have been learned in its entirety. Exactly how it was discovered I do not pretend to know nor shall I offer any theories. But here, in a situation of this sort, unquestionably, is where the real spy—the “master spy,” if you wish to call him so—steps in.