s. Paula was
right this time, but she could have been wholly and hopelessly wrong.
If she had talked to anyone else....

"My child," said Bell paternally--he was at least two years older than
Paula--"you should be careful. I did not lie to you just now. I am not
Secret Service. But I happen to know that you have a tiny piece of
string to give your father, and I beg of you not to show that to
anyone else. And--well--you are probably watched. You must not talk
seriously to me!"

He lifted his hat and started astern. He was more than merely
irritated. He was almost frightened. Because the Trade, officially,
does not exist at all, and everybody in the Trade is working entirely
on his own; and because those people who suspect that there is a Trade
and dislike it are not on their own, but have plenty of resources
behind them. And yet it is requisite that the Trade shall succeed in
its various missions. Always.

* * * * *

The Government of the United States, you understand, will admit that
it has a Secret Service, which it strives to identify solely with the
pursuit of counterfeiters, postal thieves, and violators of the
prohibition laws. Strongly pressed, it will admit that some members of
the Secret Service work abroad, the official explanation being that
they work abroad to forestall smugglers. And at a pinch, and in
confidence, it may concede the existence of diplomatic secret agents.
But there is no such thing as the Trade. Not at all. The funds which
members of the Trade expend are derived by very devious bookkeeping
from the appropriations allotted to an otherwise honestly conducted
Department of the United States Government.

Therefore the Trade does not really exist. You might say that there is
a sort of conspiracy among certain people to do certain things. Some
of them are government officials, major and minor. Some of them are
private citizens, reputable and otherwise. One or two of them are in
jail, both here and abroad. But as far as the Government of the United
States is concerned, certain fortunate coincidences that happen now
and then are purely coincidences. And the Trade, which arranges for
them, does not exist. But it has a good many enemies.

* * * * *

The fog-horn howled dismally overhead. Mist swirled past the ship, and
an oily swell surged vaguely overside and disappeared into a gray
oblivion half a ship's length away. Bell moved on