As he passed my table he dropped a slip of paper which I covered with my table-napkin. When I was sure I was not observed, I read the note. “Making excellent progress. Meet me at a quarter to eleven outside Piccadilly Tube.” I met him at the appointed time and we strolled into Jermyn Street. “What do you think of her?” was Koos’ first question. “Very pretty, my friend,” said I. “You have excellent taste.” He chuckled. “I have also excellent luck, my dear Heine.” Even well-born people call me by my Christian name, as I have before remarked, though I do not boast of this because my father’s mother was a von Kuhl-Hozeldorf and I am in a sense related to the best Würtemberg nobility. “That lady,” went on Koos, “is the daughter of one of the chief gun-constructors at Woolwich.” He looked at me to note the effect of his words, and I must confess I was startled. “Splendid, my dear fellow!” said I, warmly. “How did you come to meet her?” “A little act of gallantry,” he said airily; “a lady walking on Blackheath twists her ankle, what more natural than that I should offer her assistance to the nearest seat? Quite a babbling little person--typically English,” he added dryly. I laughed again. “I could have done very well without her assistance, of course,” he went on; “as a matter of fact, I had met one or two very excellent Englishmen who, with their usual penchant for boastfulness, were able to supply me with particulars of a new gun-lathe of which they are very proud. In fact, I have got the rough drawings, but the little lady----” He raised his eyes to the heavens and chuckled joyfully. “My dear friend,” he said impressively, “she is a mine of information. An only daughter and a little spoilt, I am afraid, she knows no doubt secrets of construction of which the technical experts of the Government are ignorant. Can you imagine a German talking over military affairs with his daughter?” “The English are a little mad, as I have remarked before,” said I. I then closely questioned Koos as to the activity of the police. It was naturally to be expected that Woolwich would be well guarded and that strangers would arouse suspicion. “There is no English secret police,” said my friend cheerfully; “there is a special department at Scotland Yard whose footsteps you can hear a mile away, but a secret service, as it is understood in Germany, or even in America, does not exist, except in the fervid imagination of romantic novelists.” “I only asked you,” I said hastily, “for fear that this girl should be watched.” “You can dismiss that possibility from your mind,” smiled Koos. By this time we had reached the end of Jermyn Street and had turned down St. James’s Street toward the Palace, and our conversation was naturally interrupted, for we had to speak in English and there was rather a crowd of people. It was not until we had reached the Mall, comparatively deserted, that Koos continued this story.