"You are so ingenious I should have thought you would have hit upon a plan."
He looked at me in his curious way.
"Why should I have tried to get out of it?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"Personally, I shouldn't feel anxious to make a mock of religion if I could avoid it."
"We are such a religious people," said he, "that surely we can count on God forgiving us more readily than other nations."
He spoke in his driest voice, and for a moment I looked at him suspiciously. But he was perfectly grave.
"Still," I replied, "I am glad the Navy doesn't have to preach bogus sermons!"
"Ah," said he, "the German navy has to keep on its pedestal. But the secret service must sometimes creep about in the dust."
His eyes suddenly twinkled as he added—