"I'm going first to Berlin, then to Petrograd," he said, perhaps avoiding our question. "Business trip."
We chatted on, the obvious thought obsessing me. Of course the man was an English spy. But how absurd! If his face did not give him away to any one who knew—and my word for it, those police spies do know!—he would be betrayed by his mannerisms. His accent would instantly cry out the English in him. Of what could Downing Street be thinking? It was sending this man to certain death. One began to feel sorry for him.
Feeling the intimacy brought by the common experience at Warnemunde, I presently said:
"You certainly have your nerve with you, traveling in Germany with your accent."
"Why?" he laughed. "A neutral is safe."
Expecting he would follow this up by saying he was an American I looked inquiring and when he sought to turn the subject I asked:
"Neutral? What country?"
"Denmark," he smiled.
"But your accent?" I persisted.
"I do talk a bit English, do I not? I had quite a go at it, though; lived in London a few years, you know."