It was only necessary to put two and two together and use a small amount of imagination; what could he be taking note of in his pocket-book except the sizes, number, and such-like particulars of the passing guns? He protested vehemently and excitedly that so far from being a spy he hated the Germans. He was, he said, a merchant from Roubaix, and was not his house and business place in their cursed hands? Which facts were proved by investigation in due course to be perfectly true. On being examined, he was asked among other questions if he could produce what he was alleged to have written in his pocketbook. This, he said, was a matter of impossibility, but he offered instead an explanation. He had, he stated, on the previous evening seen a girl who greatly attracted him; chancing to run across her again the following day, he hastily pulled out his notebook with the object of scribbling a brief note to suggest a rendezvous for later in the day. Unfortunately, she disappeared into a house near by, and he, losing sight of her, was unable to deliver his note. Naturally, therefore, he could not produce it; he had torn it up and thrown it in the gutter. I need hardly add that when the authorities were satisfied as to his identity he was released, the victim of a mistake and his own indiscretion. A few days after this incident I happened to notice a report of it in a French newspaper. With true journalistic ardour for sensational details, the writer of it added that the supposed spy "swallowed" the note he had written, rather than produce it for inspection. This is not true, but my story is an accurate account of the incident, which caused great amusement at the time.