be
necessary to code this passage; it could be transmitted in numbers just
as it stood; the Austro-Hungarian charge d'affaires at Brussels would
understand it.

"Quite so," I answered, "but you see the point is that I do not
understand it. My dear count, you are my very good friend, and it
grieves me deeply to decline any requests of yours. But the simple fact
is that our instructions explicitly forbid us to send any message in two
codes."

The count--who, by the way, was an excellent and most amiable man--
blushed and stammered that he was only carrying out the instructions of
his chief, but that my point was perfectly clear and indisputable. I was
glad that he saw it in that light, and we parted on the most friendly
terms. What became of the message I do not know nor care.

It was about the 1st of September, 1915, that I came into brief contact
with the case of Mr. J. F. J. Archibald. This gentleman was an American
journalist, and a very clever and agreeable man. We had met some months
before, when he was on his way back to America from his professional
work in Germany, and he had been a welcome guest at my table. But the
second meeting was different.

This time Mr. Archibald was returning toward Germany on the
Holland-America steamship Rotterdam. When the boat touched at Falmouth,
on August 30, the British authorities examined his luggage and found
that he was carrying private letters and official despatches from Doctor
Dumba the Austrian Ambassador at Washington, from Count Bernstorff the
German Ambassador, and from Captain von Papen his military attache. Not
only was the carrying of these letters by a private person on a regular
mail route a recognized offense against the law, but the documents
themselves contained matter of an incriminating and seditious nature,
most unfriendly to the United States. The egregious Doctor Dumba, for
example, described how it would be possible to "disorganize and hold up
for months if not entirely prevent," the work of American factories; and
the colossal Captain von Papen, in a letter referring to the activities
of German secret agents in America, gave birth to his eloquent and
unforgettable phrase, "these idiotic Yankees." The papers, of course,
were taken from Mr. Archibald at Falmouth, but he was allowed to
continue his voyage to Rotterdam en route for Berlin.

Before his arrival, however, a cablegram came from the Department of
State at Washington instructing me to take u