that from two miles out at sea no one
would dream of such things--least of all an admiral."

"So how could you blame a Prime Minister if he didn't suspect what
Germany was up to when she bought that sand-bank?" Morris asked.

"Of course that was a long time before the war, Mawruss," Abe said.
"Nowadays the dumbest Prime Minister knows enough to know that coming
from a German diplomat a simple remark like, 'Good morning, ain't it an
elegant weather we are having?' is subject to one of several
constructions, none of which is exactly what you could call _kosher_,
y'understand."

"And supposing he finds such a remark in a letter from a German diplomat
to the Kaiser, Abe?" Morris asked. "What does it mean then?"

"That depends on where it is written from," Abe said, "which if the
Minister of Foreign Affairs down in Paraguay or Peru finds out that a
German ambassador has written home to the effect that he is feeling
quite well again and hopes this letter finds you the same,
y'understand, the Foreign Minister hustles over to the War Department
and wants to know if they are going to allow him to be insulted in that
way by a dirty crook like that. On the other hand, if the chief of the
United States Secret Service gets ahold of a letter from any one of them
honorary German diplomats who is practically holding down the job of
Imperial German Consul to the Bronx while drawing the salary of--we
would say, for example--a New York Supreme Court justice, Mawruss, and
if the letter says, 'Accept my best wishes for a prosperous and happy
new year in which my wife joins and remain,' y'understand, that means
the copper was shipped in pasteboard containers marked:

PRUNES
USE NO HOOKS."

"The German Secret Service certainly fixes up some wonderful cipher
codes, Abe," Morris said. "Sometimes as much as two hours and a quarter
passes before a United States Secret Service man gets the right dope on
one of them code letters."

"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But most times he don't have no more trouble
over it than the average business man would with a baseball column,
which the way every government secret service knows every other
government's secret service's secrets, Mawruss, it's a wonder to me that
they don't call the whole thing off by mutual consent, because the only
difference between government secret services is that some secret
services is louder than others. Take, for instance, the German Secret
Service, and there was months