Irving Ellis recovered his composure and his nervousness left him in full control of his faculties as he answered the first question put to him by the brigadier general. It was a very simple question, thus:
"You are Second Lieutenant Hessenburg of the Canadian army?"
"I am."
"But a subject of Kaiser Wilhelm?"
"No, I am not," Irving replied. "I'm a subject of Great Britain, for my father was naturalized in Canada. But my sympathies are over here and when I am old enough, you'll find my citizenship where it ought always have been."
"There, I got a little truth into my bunch of lies," Irving interpolated to himself. "My citizenship will be where it always ought to have been, and was, and is, and always will be, as long as I live--in the United States. I spoke with a double tongue and satisfied my own conscience at the end. Oh, I can see that I'm going to be some prevaricator before this adventure is finished. Really, it never occurred to me before, but a spy must have the biggest imagination on earth to be successful. However, it's a good cause, that's some consolation."
Before the boy finished this soliloquy, the brigadier general was asking another question:
"And you were sent here by some of our agents in Canada?"
"Yes."
"With a message?"
"Yes."
"Let me see it."
Irving took off his coat and rolled up his left shirtsleeve, exposing to view the "cubist art" tattooing recently pricked into the skin with sharp pointed needles and aniline dye. The brigadier general gazed at it with deep interest two or three times; then looked into the spy's face and said:
"You're all right. You must go to Berlin at once."
He contemplated the hieroglyphic oddity a minute longer and then said:
"My curiosity is keen to know how you got over here."
"I flew over," Irving replied.
"How could you manage that? Were you in the air service?"
"Yes, during the last few weeks. I was out with a pilot last night and slipped away with a parachute in the heat of the battle."
It was the brigadier general's turn now to utter something of the explosive character of an oath. As Irving's schooling and recent drill in the Teutonic tongue did not comprehend such ultra-rhetorical figures of speech, he did not get the full significance of the expletive.
But it was evident that the officer's outburst was anything but an expression of anger. Admiration popped into his eyes and spoke out of them in "violent harmony" with his oath. But this overflowing endorsement of the spy's activities was suddenly interrupted by a change of manner that caused Irving a little uneasiness as a new thought took possession of the burly military man's mind.
"What do you suppose they think about you now over in the Canadian lines? They're onto you now, aren't they? If we want you to return on another mission over there, you've spoiled the game by your manner of escape, haven't you? How could you explain it if they put you on the grill?"
"That'll be very easy," Irving replied. "I waited for the right conditions. We got into a fight with a couple of German planes and it was looking pretty bad for us. Then a shell from an anti-aircraft gun exploded so near to us that it seemed impossible for us to have escaped serious damage. Well, two seconds later I saw the pilot was having trouble with his engine; so I concluded it was time for me to take my departure."
The look of gleeful admiration returned to the officer's face.
"You handled it well, very well," he said, with a disagreeable, gloating laugh.
Irving's sentiments, however, were of much different nature. He was thoroughly disgusted with his own "string of falsehoods," as he characterized the stories he had told to the intelligence attache and the brigadier general.
"I know very well that a spy is a personified fib, pure and simple," he told himself with a reflective compression of his lips. "I don't think it's any worse than that, and I don't think the stories I told were any worse than fibs. A spy is just a misrepresentation walking around on two feet. If he doesn't tell a single fib, it's his business to make the enemy think he's something he isn't. If he does this for a bad cause, he's a bad man; if he does it for a worthy cause, he's a good man, not because he fibs, but because of the cause he misrepresents. So long as he doesn't misrepresent the cause, he ought to be all right. Still, the world will admire him more if he's smart enough to get what he wants without telling any downright li--fibs like the ones I told. I'm going to see if I can't get along hereafter without fibbing."
Irving worked this reasoning out in his mind as the conversation with the officer proceeded. He was much relieved also on finding that he was able to answer all succeeding questions without resorting to any gross misstatements of facts. At last the brigadier general closed the interview by saying:
"I'll excuse you for the time being. Meanwhile I'll communicate with my superior officers and you'll wait under orders of the adjutant for instructions from me."
Irving returned to the orderlies' room. He had not eaten breakfast and informed an officer of the hungry condition of his stomach. This resulted in his being turned over to an orderly who conducted him to the officers' mess, where he was served with a very good meal.
"I guess I'm in right," he mused. "They give me the best feed and show me considerable attention. The auspices are good. Hope I can keep things coming my way, and I'll get what I'm after."
About an hour after breakfast, the adjutant summoned Irving into his office and spoke to him, thus:
"We have just received orders to send you to Berlin. Are you ready to go?"
"I haven't any luggage to pack," the spy answered.
"You will be supplied with what you need," the adjutant continued. "You will also be accompanied by a young lieutenant who is recovering from wounds received at the front and who has been granted home leave for a month or two. He lives in Berlin. He will be here soon and go with you to the train."
An hour later Irving was on a troop train, speeding away to the northeast, away from the still thundering battle front and toward the objective city of his secret-service aims, hopes, plans and patriotic ambition.