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 know what interchange in ideas had been agreed upon for interchanged words; and there are not twenty-six letters, but 26,000 words which may be transposed in meaning. The big German spy work—that is, the chain of messages that passed between the German Embassy in America and the Imperial Headquarters in Berlin—was done in enciphered code. They had first been written in German before coding, and after coding, the code was put in cipher. None the less, we read them, and von Bernstorff, Dr. Albert, et al., are no more on our soil.

This is specialized, expert work of the most delicate and difficult sort, and is not for the average amateur. Sometimes the latter had more enthusiasm than knowledge in his ambition to be a real sleuth, and in such cases, perhaps something amusing might happen, where zeal did not jump with discretion.