But he was rich! Doubtless by the custom of his country he is now in some great position plotting the ruin of Britannia and certainly she deserves it in his case. He was most unmercifully ragged.
XIV THE SPY
One day as I was walking along the beach at Southsea, I saw a little man sitting upon a camp-stool and very carefully drawing the Old Round Stone Fort which stands in the middle of the shallow water, one of the four that so stand, and which looks from Southsea as though it were about half-way across to the Island.
I said to him: "Sir, why are you drawing that old Fort?"
He answered: "I am a German Spy, and the reason I draw that Fort is to provide information for my Government which may be useful to it in case of war with this country."
When the gentleman sitting upon the camp-stool, who was drawing the Old Round Stone Fort in the middle of the water, talked like this he annoyed me very much.
"You merely waste your time," said I. "These Forts were put up nearly sixty years ago, and they are quite useless."
"I know nothing about that," said the little man—he had hair like hemp and prominent weak blue eyes of a glazed sort, and altogether he struck me as a fool of no insignificant calibre—"I know nothing about that. I obey orders. I was told to draw this Fort, and that I am now doing."