The usefulness of these spies at head-quarters was enormous. Take the case of a pretended accident by way of an example. An action was once brought against a company having its chief station in the metropolis. The plaintiff asked damages or compensation for the injuries sustained through a collision. The company did not see its way to resist the claim entirely, but as they considered the amount wanted by the plaintiff to be excessive, they thought it could be reduced by negotiation. Two thousand pounds was the sum originally asked. The plaintiff, however, in the course of the negotiation, reduced his expectations to 1000_l._ This was, his attorney said, the very lowest he would accept. The company's solicitors reported this one day, and were authorised to settle by payment of 800_l._ and costs. The company's solicitors thereupon offered 700_l._ as their very highest figure. If this was declined, they must, they said, fight to the end, and see what a jury would give. It was of course their intention to spring 100_l._ at the last moment, rather than let the negotiation break down. The plaintiff's attorney, however, in reply to the offer of 700_l._, wrote back to say that he had seen his unfortunate client, who, in order to put an end to dispute and litigation, would take 800_l._, but not 1_s._ less; and added, that it was useless to negotiate further if that concession were not met at once by an assent. It did not appear, nor was it at all remarkable, that the negotiation should be thus conducted up to the very point at which the company's solicitors were empowered to settle; but the real cause of the plaintiff's agreement to accept 800_l._ was the information he had received that that sum was the most he could hope to get without passing through the ordeal of a public investigation--a test the gang would always yield much to avoid. It happened, by a singularly fortuitous combination of circumstances, that I had under my vigilant eye at that time a man who was concerned in getting up a forgery. In the course of my watch I saw letters passing to and from the secretary's office of an important railway. It was no part of my business to report the circumstance. To have done so might have spoiled the game I was playing; so I took no notice, or rather made no sign. In less than a week after the delivery of the last letter, about six o'clock in the evening, my plot was ripe, and I seized my man. Extraordinary inadvertence, and wonderful care! He had destroyed one link in the chain I was constructing with his own unconscious aid, but he had preserved one link in another chain of equal value and utility to his other foes. On his person I found a note, in cipher it is true, but written on paper which had an impression of one of the company's seals. The cipher was, moreover, not so very hard to decipher. A friend, to whose skill I paid a deserved compliment in my former volume, soon unravelled that mystery.