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 horde of German secret agents who came to us as friends and fellow-motorists, and partook of our hospitality while actively plotting for our undoing.

Lionel Eastwell sat discussing this with me one dark rainy afternoon.

'There's no doubt that the Germans held out the hand of friendship and laughed up their sleeves,' he said, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke upwards from his lips. 'Now that one remembers, one grows furious at it all. I confess that I liked Germany and the Germans. My people went to Germany each summer, for the mater was a bit of a musician, and we usually drifted to Dresden. I suppose I inherited from her my love of music, and that's why I was sent to Dresden for a couple of years' tuition.'

'And did you never suspect?' I asked. 'Remember what Lord Roberts and many others told us. Recollect how we were warned by men who had travelled, and who knew.'

'Of course I read all those speeches and writings, but I confess, Claude, that I laughed at them. I never dreamed that war would come—not for another twenty years or more. I was lulled into a sense of false security, just as our Government and people were lulled.'

'True, Germany told us fables—pretty land, sea and air fables—and we were childish enough to believe them. If peace had been the Kaiser's object, why did Krupp's and Ehrardt's work night and day and Count Zeppelin carry on his frantic work of building giant airships?' I queried. 'The greatest