"'No good stayin' here,' said Tommy, 'I vote we crawl back and talk it over. This is a crummy old place.'
"When we got back to billets and examined our loot, it was a sure enough German spy's code book, and it contained a rough sketch of all our trenches and what not, quite sufficient to use in conjunction with the squared map he carried. The book was printed in German.
"'You know,' said Tommy, 'we must report this to the Colonel as soon as we can.'
"'An' be collared for being out at night without a pass first thing? Not much,' said I.
"'We must hide this loot. They may search us when they find him out there,' said Tommy, looking to the future.
"'Hide away, then,' I said, but my mind was elsewhere, for all of a sudden, I had been hit in the eye with a brilliant inspiration.
"The following morning, when I took our ole man his early tea, I found 'im sitting up in bed sucking a fat cigar and bewilderin' himself with the brigade orders.
"'I beg your pardon, sir!' I says, 'but may I have a word with you?'
"'You know, McNab,' he says, screwing his eye-glass into his eye with a smile—'you know that I am at any hour of the day or night glad to have a talk to a man of understanding like yourself.'
"'That's good of you, Colonel,' I says, 'to meet me with such kindness. But I think, as you say, that I have just a little more than the usual share of intellec' under my hat, but what I have come to lay before your notice is this: I have discovered why the Boche guns always register on our artillery positions the moment they are taken up, and the source of the leakage of information.'