ow me and you could follow my process of thought
in those remarks. Ivery, not knowing me so well, and having his head
full of just that sort of argument, saw nothing unusual. Those bits of
noos were pumped into Gresson that he might pass them on. And he did
pass them on--to Ivery. They completed my chain.'

'But they were commonplace enough things which he might have guessed
for himself.'

'No, they weren't. They were the nicest tit-bits of political noos
which all the cranks have been reaching after.'

'Anyhow, they were quotations from German papers. He might have had the
papers themselves earlier than you thought.'

'Wrong again. The paragraph never appeared in the _Wieser Zeitung_. But
we faked up a torn bit of that noospaper, and a very pretty bit of
forgery it was, and Gresson, who's a kind of a scholar, was allowed to
have it. He passed it on. Ivery showed it me two nights ago. Nothing
like it ever sullied the columns of Boche journalism. No, it was a
perfectly final proof ... Now, Dick, it's up to you to get after
Gresson.'

'Right,' I said. 'I'm jolly glad I'm to start work again. I'm getting
fat from lack of exercise. I suppose you want me to catch Gresson out
in some piece of blackguardism and have him and Ivery snugly put away.'

'I don't want anything of the kind,' he said very slowly and
distinctly. 'You've got to attend very close to your instructions, I
cherish these two beauties as if they were my own white-headed boys. I
wouldn't for the world interfere with their comfort and liberty. I want
them to go on corresponding with their friends. I want to give them
every facility.'

He burst out laughing at my mystified face.

'See here, Dick. How do we want to treat the Boche? Why, to fill him up
with all the cunningest lies and get him to act on them. Now here is
Moxon Ivery, who has always given them good information. They trust him
absolutely, and we would be fools to spoil their confidence. Only, if
we can find out Moxon's methods, we can arrange to use them ourselves
and send noos in his name which isn't quite so genooine. Every word he
dispatches goes straight to the Grand High Secret General Staff, and
old Hindenburg and Ludendorff put towels round their heads and cipher
it out. We want to encourage them to go on doing it. We'll arrange to
send true stuff that don't matter, so as they'll continue to trust him,
and a few selected falsehoods that'll matter like hell. It's a game you
can't play