what I have wanted to know, when they had the slightest reason to suspect that I was not a suitable recipient of their confidence. The truth seems to be, that while women find it often troublesome, and well nigh impossible, to keep little and inconsequential secrets, they are first-rate hands at keeping great ones.
For certain kinds of secret service work women are, out of all comparison, superior to men. This, I believe, is acknowledged by all detectives and others who have been compelled to employ secret agents. One reason for this is, that women, when they undertake a secret service job, are really quicker witted and more wide awake than men; they more easily deceive other people, and are less easily imposed upon. Of course there is a great deal of secret service work for which women are not well fitted, and much that it is scarcely possible for them to perform at all ; but, as a rule, for an enterprise that requires real finesse, a woman will be likely to accomplish far more than a man.
I was just thinking that my lieutenant had deserted me, or that he was in another car for the purpose of keeping an eye on me unobserved, when he appeared beside me, having jumped on the rear end of the car as it was starting.
He said, "You have no objections to my occupying the same seat with you, have you, madam?"
"O, no, sir!" I replied; "I shall be exceedingly glad to have the pleasure of your society, so far as you are going."
"Well, I only intend going up to my camp now, but I have half a mind to run on as far as Memphis that is, if my company will not be disagreeable to you."
"I will be very greatly pleased if you will go through with me. It has been a long time since I have met any agreeable gentlemen, and I particularly admire officers." As I said this I gave him a killing glance, and then dropped my eyes as if half ashamed of having made such a bold advance to him. The bait took, however, as I expected it would; and the lieutenant, giving his mustache a twist, and running his hand through his hair, settled himself down in the seat with a most self-satisfied air, evidently supposing that the conquest of my heart was more than half completed, and began to make himself as agreeable as he knew how. Finesse was certainly not this youth's most marked characteristic, and he went about making himself agreeable, and endeavoring to discover who I was, where I came from, and all about me, in
