Page:Britain's Deadly Peril.djvu/142

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136
BRITAIN'S DEADLY PERIL
play a trick on the volunteers for his own eyes to see!"

Here is a curious story of a German commercial spy, the writer of which gives me his bona fides. He writes:

"In a glucose factory where I worked, the head of the firm had a bookkeeper who went wrong. If that bookkeeper had never gone wrong, we should never have known of the German who worked hard in England for a whole year for nothing. One day the head—I'll call him Mr. Brown for short—received a letter from a young German saying that he would like to represent the glucose manufacturer among the merchants of this country, whose trade, he said, he could secure. He said he would be willing to postpone the consideration of salary pending the result of his services. Well, Brown turned the German over to the bookkeeper, who found that the German had splendid credentials from his own country. So Brown told the bookkeeper to engage the German, and pay him £40 a month to start. At the end of six months the German's service had proved so satisfactory that Brown told his bookkeeper to pay the German £50 a month till further notice; and three months later the salary was again raised by Brown to £60. Along about the time the German's year was up, he suddenly disappeared. That is, he failed one morning to put in an appearance at the office at the usual time. Brown noticed that morning that his bookkeeper, who was also cashier, was extremely absent-minded and looked altogether unhappy. 'What's the matter with you?' said Brown, addressing the bookkeeper. 'This is the matter,' was the reply, and thereupon the bookkeeping cashier laid before his employer a cheque for hundreds of pounds. It was made payable to the order of the absent German, and was signed with