In this way it has come about that I enjoy the friendship and confidence of many illustrious personages, whose names would excite envy were I at liberty to mention them in these pages; and that few events of any magnitude happen in any part of the globe without my being in some measure concerned in them. Often, when some great affair has been proceeding, I have felt myself as occupying the position of the stage manager, who looks on from the wings, directing the entrances and exits of the gorgeously dressed performers who engross the attention and applause of the ignorant spectators on the other side of the footlights. * * * * * The true story of the famous telegram which may be said to have rendered the South African War inevitable is one which strikingly illustrates the extent to which the public may be deceived about the most important transactions of contemporary history. Every one is familiar with the situation created by that celebrated despatch. For some time previously all England, and, in fact, all Europe, had been agitated by the intelligence that Johannesburg was on the eve of insurrection, that the Boers were drawing their forces together about the doomed city, that Dr. Jameson had dashed across the frontier with five hundred followers in a mad attempt to come to the aid of the threatened Outlanders, and that his action had been formally disavowed by the British Government. Close on the heels of these tidings came the memorable day on which London was cast into gloom by long streams of placards issuing from the newspaper offices bearing the dismal legend, ‘Jameson Beaten and a Prisoner!’ While the populace were yet reeling under the blow, divided between distress at this humiliation for the British flag, and indignation at the criminal recklessness which had staked the country’s honour on a gambler’s throw, there came the portentous news that the head of the great German Empire, the grandson of Queen Victoria, had sent a public message of congratulation to the Boer President, rejoicing with him in the face of the world over an event which every Englishman felt as a national disaster. That hour registered the doom of the Pretorian Government. Jameson was scornfully forgotten. The British people, as proud as it is generous, made up its mind that the forbearance so long extended to a vassal of its own, could no longer be shown with honour to the _protégé_ of a mighty European Power. On the very day on which this celebrated despatch appeared as the chief item of news in all the newspapers of the world, I received an urgent cipher message from the Director of the Imperial Secret Service, Herr Finkelstein, demanding my presence in Berlin.