And so it went. Now and then one of them, after volunteering an account of something in his own naval experience, would counter with some more or less shrewdly interpolated query calculated to draw a "revealing" reply; but for the most part they were content with a passive listener. That fact relieved considerably the embarrassment this action on the part of the Germans placed Allied officers, who were under orders to hold no "unnecessary conversation" in the course of their tours of inspection. A "monologue" could in no way be construed as a "conversation," and when, as was almost invariably the case, it was up on a subject in which the "audience" was deeply interested, it was felt that there was no contravention of the spirit of the order in listening to it. The statements and comment I am setting down in this article were heard in the course of such "monologues" delivered by this or that German naval officer with whom I was thrown--often for as long as two or three days at stretch--in connection with the journeys and inspection routine of the party to which I chanced to be attached at the moment. In only two or three instances--notably in the case of an officer in the flying service who endeavoured to dissuade us from visiting the Zeppelin station at Tondern by giving a false account of the damage inflicted in the course of the British bombing raid of last summer--did statements made under these circumstances turn out to be deliberate untruths. On the contrary, indeed, much that I first heard in this way I have later been able to confirm from other sources, and to this--statements which there is good reason to believe are quite true--I am endeavouring to confine myself here. In matter of opinions expressed, the German naval officer has, of course, the same right to his own as has anybody else, and, as one of the few things remaining to him at the end of the war that he _did_ have a right to, I did not, and shall not, try to dispute them.