"Your offer is very kind," Irving said with emphasis intended to express warmth of feeling.
"No--patriotic," Strauss declared.
"No doubt of that," the spy admitted; "but a man can be patriotic and kind at the same time, can he not?"
"Yes, but this is all patriotism."
"Very well, I'll accept your offer," Irving announced. "But I doubt if Mr. Herrmann will allow it. You are a very valuable man in the office, and the operation would surely make it necessary for you to lay off a few days. He'll probably insist that an office boy or clerk or stenographer make the patriotic sacrifice in your stead."
"That'll suit me--just so there is no delay in finding someone who's willing," Strauss replied.
Irving proved to be correct in his prophecy of the probable attitude of the superintendent toward the proposition. Mr. Herrmann objected strenuously for the reason suggested by the spy and he took it on himself to find a person who would supply the skin to be grafted. Two days later he reported success and preparations for the operation were begun.
But everybody connected with these preliminaries had an important lesson to learn regarding the proper method for a layman to approach a matter of science. None of them, of course, knew anything, except in a very general way, about skin grafting. Irving had assumed that it was a simple process, and, as a matter of fact, it is, if we accept the principle of the simplicity of all things. But what startled him most was the simplicity of the error he had fallen into.
Mr. Herrmann gave Irving a note to the superintendent of one of the city hospitals and directed him to go there and make arrangements for the operation. He was authorized to state that a young soldier who had lost one of his legs in the first battle of the Marne had promised to furnish the needed four-by-two inches of skin to replace the tattooed integument on his arm.
The spy did as instructed and was turned over to a member of the surgical staff. The latter listened to the boy's story and his suggestions and then inquired:
"At what college of physicians and surgeons did you get your degree?"
Irving no doubt flushed like a schoolboy. He realized that the member of the hospital staff was laughing at him, and this confused him more than a veiled suspicion that he was a Canadian spy would have done.
"The college I graduated from was that of mother's home remedies," he replied.
"I thought so," nodded the surgeon with a smile. "Let me see--you are in the intelligence department, are you not?"
"Yes, sir."
"Doing important work, aren't you?'
"I believe so."
"Work that requires sharp wit?"
"Supposedly."
"Well, sharp wits never assume anything without some information to back them up. Your ideas of skin grafting are a good deal like a child's. In the first place we shan't need anybody to supply any skin. Sorry to disappoint the young patriot with really commendable spirit of loyalty."
Irving looked his surprise.
"You'll supply all the skin we need," the surgeon continued.
"But it is important that there be no scars," Irving insisted.
"There won't be any, or so slight that they'll be hardly noticeable," was the surgeon's reassuring reply. "Let me explain the process to an unscientific keen wit of the government's intelligence department."
The surgeon lifted the spy's bared arm with his left hand and began his explanation, indicating with one finger now and then the various moves necessary as he described the process.
"With a razor," he said, "we will cut an outline around this hideous art of yours. Then we'll peel off the atrocity and cremate it over an alcohol flame. Next we'll peel a strip of the same length and three-fourths of an inch wide just below here, leaving the upper end of the strip attached and twisting it around so that it will lie midway between the edges of the raw space where the tattooing was. Then we'll cut under the skin along both sides to loosen it an inch or more back and draw the loosened skin to the piece in the center and make a hair suture. The reason we must run a strip of skin over the middle of the raw area is because this area will be too wide for stretching the skin at the sides over it. Skin that is stretched too tight will die. The narrow raw place produced by the peeling of the strip down over the wrist can be covered by pulling together the edges of the skin on both sides after running the razor back under it a short distance. Quite different from the process you imagined, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is," Irving admitted.
"I bet you thought all that was necessary was to peel off a piece of skin and lay it on the raw place after this cubist art picture had been removed. Isn't that true?"
"Maybe--something of the kind. I hadn't thought it out in detail," Irving replied.
"Of course, you hadn't. You'd have been too scientific for a secret service operative, wouldn't you?"
"Can't secret service people be scientific?" Irving inquired.
"What do you think about it?" asked the surgeon. "You ought to know more about it than I do. But I'll tell you what my frank and unscientific opinion in the matter is."
"What is it?"
"That government secret service is 1 per cent information and 99 per cent bluff."
"That's a little strong on the side of the bluff," said the spy, smiling.
"But there's something to it?"
"Yes."
"Now you need this much science to prevent your bluff from getting you into trouble. When you attempt to bluff a scientific man be sure not to bluff along the line of his knowledge and the line of your ignorance. By the way, when do you want that operation performed?
"The sooner the better," Irving replied.
"How about now?"
This almost took the boy's breath away, but after a few minutes he answered:
"That's all right, I suppose, but I'd better call up my office first and tell the boss what's doing."
"Very well; here's a telephone. Call him up."
Irving did so and in a few minutes had authority to "go ahead and have it over as soon as possible."