"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: