Page:Tex; a chapter in the life of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (IA texchapterinlife00mcke).pdf/24

 In the autumn of 1914 a censorship department was improvised in the office of the National Service League. A press-gang of two, working the clubs of London and the colleges of Oxford, established the nucleus of a staff; and the first recruits were given, as their earliest duty, the task of bringing in more recruits. As the department had been formed to examine the commercial correspondence of neutrals and enemies, the first qualification of a candidate was a knowledge of languages; and, in the preliminary search for recruits, Alfred Sutro convinced the friend who had succeeded him in translating Maeterlinck that a man who was equally at home in English, French, German, Flemish, Dutch and Danish, with a smattering of ecclesiastical Latin, was too valuable to be spared. Teixeira joined the growing brotherhood of lawyers, dons and business men in Palace Street, Westminster, advising on intercepted letters and cables, curtailing the activities of traders