The fact is that the truth lies somewhere between the extremes represented by these two instances. The opportunities which have been afforded me to investigate the subject lead to the conclusion that, though Military Intelligence is, in many of its phases, as hard-boiled and unromantic as Standard Oil, it is nevertheless thickly sprinkled with incidents and episodes which would have provided material for the creators of LeCoq and Sherlock Holmes. Though a fairly careful perusal of the files of “M. I. D.,” as the Division of Military Intelligence is commonly referred to in the army, discloses no evidence that German spies of the caliber of Karl Lody and Bolo Pasha operated in this country during the war, they do contain the _dossiers_ of enemy agents whose personalities and exploits meet all the requirements for characters in spy fiction. Probably the nearest approach to the high-class spy, as made familiar by the articles in the Sunday supplements and the magazines, was Captain Franz von Rintelen, naval attaché of the German Embassy in Washington, who is now enjoying an enforced sojourn in a large stone château as the guest of the government. Though the equally notorious Madame Victorica, a titled adventuress in the pay of the Wilhelmstrasse, filled several of the specifications of the secret agent of fiction, truth compels me to destroy certain illusions which the public has held concerning this lady by stating that she was by no means young, that she was only passably good-looking, and that she was so far from clever that her own boastfulness led to her apprehension. The other enemy agents who operated in this country were, for the most part, former privates in the German Army or petty officers and stewards on German liners, the most picturesque of the lot, a man named Bode, being so inefficient that he was dismissed by his own government, whereupon, being without funds, he surrendered himself to the American authorities. He will receive board and lodging at government expense for some years to come. Though the beautiful young Madame Storch, who died under mysterious circumstances at Ellis Island a few days after her arrest, possessed a certain romantic interest, she and her three companions were so weak in character and of such small-caliber intelligence, that it is exceedingly doubtful if the Wilhelmstrasse ever intrusted them with any important work or confided to them any important secrets. Let it be perfectly clear, however, that nothing is further from my intention than to minimize the deadly gravity of the German-spy menace in this country during the war, or to suggest that, had no steps been taken to check it, it would not have caused the loss of millions of American dollars and thousands of American lives. That the national safety was not more gravely imperilled by these enemy agents was not due to their inefficiency, or to the weakness of the German espionage system, but to the efficiency, resourcefulness, and