“There may be two,” he replied callously. The next morning he expressed his intention of going through the City and the East End to photograph the worst of the damage. I did not offer to accompany him, and indeed, had he suggested that I should do so, I should have firmly declined. Fortunately, he knew London very well, for he had been an attaché at the German Embassy a few years before the war broke out, so he had no need of my assistance or guidance. He left the flat at eleven o’clock and I arranged to meet him at a restaurant in Piccadilly for lunch. I need hardly say that he was armed with a passport; not only very completely filled in, but endorsed with an exact imitation of the rubber stamps which were used in those days by examining officers at Folkestone when passengers landed. I was waiting for him at one o’clock, but he did not arrive. Half-past one came, a quarter to two, two o’clock, and I began to feel seriously alarmed, and was thinking what an excellent text his arrest would provide for a letter to Potsdam on the futility of sending amateurs, when he came through the swing doors. He uttered no word till we were sitting at the table, and the waiter had served the soup. “These English people are very clever,” he said at last. “In a way they are clever,” I said, “but by the side of the German----” “Don’t talk nonsense. Our German people are merely slavish imitators of everybody else in the world. If Germany was not a nation of slaves we should never have an army.” This put an end to the easy flow of conversation, but presently I ventured to ask: “Why does your Excellency think the English are clever?” “I am referring to the way they have cleared up the mess we made and have run up new buildings.” He looked up at me curiously as he spoke. “Don’t you agree?” “Naturally,” I said heartily, “I have reason to believe that hundreds of thousands of workmen have been working day and night to restore the damage.” He laughed. “In addition to being a fool, you are a liar,” he said, and I could only smile at the good humour and buoyant frankness of this high-born officer who was in all probability in the entourage of the All-Highest himself and, at any rate, as I have since learnt, had frequently dined with that exalted Prince whom we call the Hope of Germany. “No,” Baron von Treutzer went on, “the Zeppelin did little or no damage. It caused nothing of the smash that we expected it would. We will see what to-night’s raid brings out.” “To-night?” I said, half-rising from my seat. “Did I say to-night?” he said in an off-hand way. “Well, whenever it happens.” But I knew that in a moment of incaution he had spoken the truth. “By the way, I shall want you with me to-night,” he said. “To-night?” I repeated. “I am very sorry but this is the one night I cannot be with your Excellency. I have an important messenger coming from Ireland with particulars of a rising, and the Foreign Office has particularly asked me----”