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 tearing it down wherever it was discovered. Von Kronhelm was the arch-enemy of London, and it is believed that there were at that moment no fewer than five separate conspiracies to encompass his death. Londoners detested the Germans, but with a hatred twenty times the more intense did they regard those men who, having engaged in commercial pursuits in England, had joined the colours and were now acting as spies in the service of the enemy.

Hundreds of extraordinary tales were told of Germans who, for years, had been regarded as inoffensive toilers in London, and yet who were now proved by their actions to be spies. It was declared, and was no doubt a fact, that without the great army of advance-agents—every man among them having been a soldier—Germany would never have effected the rapid coup she had done. The whole thing had been carefully thought out, and this invasion was the culmination of years of careful thought and most minute study.