Members of the German legation staff conferred with him. Plotting and intriguing there, as they did in the United States, they were pretending the greatest friendship for Argentina, giving officials and people to understand that, while the U-boats might be sinking vessels of other nations without warning, Argentinian shipping was exempt. If any of its ships were sunk, it was only a regrettable mistake. And at the very time Luxburg was talking this dear friendliness, he was sending "spurlos versenkt" messages to the German Government. "Doctor Brecht" had many adventures, but the most picturesque was the role he played in Buenos Aires. Joining at once the German "Bund," which had branches all over the Argentine, the "Doctor" formed one of the group of well-known Austrians and Germans which gathered at the famous round-table in the Bismarck restaurant. At the annual banquet of the Deutscher Bund, the German event of the year, Count von Luxburg presided. "Herr Doctor Ernst Brecht" was called upon to speak on behalf of the Germans of Brazil. Giving a touching account of the situation of the Brazilian Teutons and their determination and devotion to the cause of the "Vaterland," he ended by quoting a bellicose poem written by a well-known German poetess who lived at Blumenau, the hotbed of Teutonism in Brazil. He was cheered and applauded enthusiastically, and Count von Luxburg himself unbent far enough to thank the speaker for his inspiring words and express the hope that his sojourn in the hospitable Argentine would prove pleasant and profitable. It certainly did--but in a way that the Count never suspected. There was general regret when "Doctor Brecht" announced that he felt compelled within a few weeks to return to Europe. He had found that the German officials were planning to send important dispatches they would not entrust to the mails, and they planned at first to make him their messenger. But before this was arranged, Luxburg's code messages regarding the U-boat warfare were published by the United States. The Count was amazed. Sent in a complicated code known only to himself and the Berlin Foreign Office, five thousand miles away; cabled by the minister of another country among his own private dispatches, he could not understand how those messages could be captured and deciphered by the Americans. It was evident that they were not so stupid as he and Captain von Papen thought they were.