The Herr Baron and I were good friends, though we seldom met. I think he was pleased with me because I never forgot the homage which is due to the greatly-born, and he was certainly popular with me because he had the ear of Potsdam and the All-Highest Confidence of He Whose Name we will not mention. My reputation as a writer of letters had been firmly established when I received a note asking me to meet the Baron at a certain hotel in a South Coast watering place. Precisely on the day, at the hour and to the minute of my appointment, I presented myself in the private suite of his Excellency, who always received me with the most gracious condescension. “Heine,” he said, when he had closed the door, “I am very troubled about you.” “About me, your Excellency,” I said in surprise. “Yes, about you,” he repeated. “It is clear to me that you are suspect. I have heard all about the things which have happened in the past, and knowing the British Secret Service as I do, I cannot imagine that you have, as the Americans say, got away with it.” “Secret service, your Excellency?” I smiled; “surely you do not believe in a widely organized----?” “Don’t be a fool, Heine,” said the Herr Baron sharply; even to be called a fool by a man of his position and rank is a compliment, implying as it does a friendliness and an intimacy which few of us attain with our superiors. “Of course there is a Secret Police. The whole country is overrun with them. It is the most deadly Secret Police in the world, with the exception of the American, because it doesn’t boast and it doesn’t talk. Its very silence is its strength.” For my part, though I was not feeling strong, I was silent. One cannot argue the point with an amateur, even a distinguished amateur, and whilst I was always willing to admit that the police of England were undoubtedly brilliant and extraordinarily lucky, I could not admit the existence of an organization on the scale which the Herr Baron outlined. “You don’t believe this,” he said quickly, and before I could protest my faith in anything he said, he went on: “I tell you, that this hotel is filled with English spies. They probably saw you come into this room, and it is fairly certain they followed you from London and will go back with you. That is why I asked you in my telegram to come down and have a friendly argument on the question of trade after the war, as outlined in your letter to the _Post Herald_. That telegram was read and re-read before it reached you. Have no doubt of that, Heine. Here in England they know I am a German. They hope I am loyal. They do not trust me any more than they trust you.” “But surely, Herr Baron,” I smiled, “this does not mean that your Excellency will not be able to serve the Fatherland in moments of emergency?” He shook his head.