s way. There are two forms
of it. There's the white form, and that _is_ poison, shocking poison;
it's what the Fijians use when they want to pacify a busybody like
Captain Cook who comes butting in where he isn't wanted. As a matter
of fact there's uncommon little of it--they don't get a hundredweight
in a generation. Then there's the red form, and that's what Johnnies
have been dumping down 580 tons of at What's-its-name. It's quite
innocuous, and is used for commercial purposes--tanning leather, or
making spills, or something of that kind. Now may I go to the Ad----"

"But have you told all this to the Director-General?"

"Oh yes, sir. I told him first thing this morning."

"Did he pass no remarks as to your having started him off after this
absurd hare of yours?"

"Well, you see, sir, he's an uncommonly busy man, and I didn't feel
justified in wasting his time. So, after relieving his mind, I cleared
out at once."

"And your professors?"

"Oh, those professor-men--it would never do to tell them, sir. They'd
be perfectly miserable if they were deprived of the excitement of
muddling about with their crucibles and blow-pipes and retorts and
things. It would be cruelty to animals to enlighten them--it would
indeed, sir; and I know that you would not wish me to do anything to
discourage scientific investigation. Now, sir, may I go over to the
Admiralty?" And off he went, with instructions to find out all that he
could about these contrivances that he had heard about, and to do what
he could to promote their production. A treasure: unconventional,
resourceful, exceptionally well informed, determined; the man to get a
thing done that one wanted done--even if he did at times get a thing
done that one didn't particularly want done--and in some respects
quite the best intelligence officer I have come across in a fairly
wide experience. To-day "Z" commands the applause of listening senates
in the purlieus of St. Stephen's and has given up to party what was
meant for mankind; but although he is not Prime Minister yet, nor even
a Secretary of State, that will come in due course.

It was in May 1915 that "Z" told me that the Admiralty were at work on
some sort of land-ship, and set about finding out what was being
done; he had previously been in communication with Colonel E. D.
Swinton over at the front. Only in the latter part of 1919, when the
question of claims in connection with the invention and the
development of Ta