As I was now in France, and conscious of my own sympathies with the Allies, I thought that there would be no harm in disclosing the whole of my documents. Accordingly when my turn came to be examined by the _commissaire_, I said straight out that I had come from Constantinople. Instead of being hailed as a hero, I was given to understand, albeit politely, that in all probability I had adopted this course of showing all my papers because I was not merely a spy, but a super-spy, who had conceived the brilliant idea that the best plan of getting past the French authorities was to affect an attitude of colossal candour. In vain I protested and expostulated. In vain I pointed out that it was essential that I should arrive in London with the utmost possible expedition. I suggested that if they distrusted me they could send with me an official, every official they possessed for that matter, whose expenses I would pay to Paris, where they could easily satisfy themselves at the Paris office of _The Daily Mail_ that I was what I represented myself to be. Talk of German thoroughness, German caution, and German patriotism! The Germans have much to learn from those excessively courteous but severe French officials, who cannot be won over by the flattery which goes so far in Germany. If the official I had encountered thought that I was a super-spy, I am convinced that he was a super-official. Now that it is all over I have for him nothing but admiration, but at the time his persistent courtesy made me feel that I should like to hit him. Nothing would satisfy him but that I should be stripped, and this fact he conveyed to me in the most courteous phraseology, at which I suggested with some acerbity that he would still be courteous even were he leading me to the guillotine! None the less, stripped I had to be.