By this means I retained his favor, and succeeded in gaining his confidence to a degree that the reader will probably think rather astonishing, considering my antecedents, and the kind of work that I was engaged in sub rosa. It should be borne in mind, however, that Baker did not know, and could not know, anything of my previous history that I had been highly recommended to him, and that I was constantly proving useful to him. Wherein he failed in astuteness, was in permitting me to carry on the peculiar operations I did, almost under his eyes, and to make use of him, and of the machinery of his office, for the accomplishment of my plans.
At each succeeding interview I could see that Baker was becoming more and more favorably impressed with me, and I did not doubt that I would finally succeed in securing him as an unconcious ally of myself and my co-workers.
My grand opportunity at length did arrive, and the cunning secret service chief fell into the trap laid for him as innocently and unsuspectingly as if he had never heard of such a thing as a spy in his life. The colonel, as I have before remarked, was not a bad sort of a fellow in his way; and as I had a sincere regard for him, I am sorry he is not alive now, that he might be able to read this narrative, and so learn how completely he was taken in, and by a woman, too. He was a smart man, but not smart enough for all occasions.
One of Baker's Grievances.
I have heard Colonel Baker frequently complain bitterly of the manner in which so many of his neatly laid plans were revealed to the very persons whom he was most anxious should know nothing about them, almost as soon as they were arranged; and I have endeavored to console him, and to suggest reasons for the phenomena, but was never able to quite make him understand the mystery. The reader of this narrative will know, as Colonel Baker never was able to, why some of his arrangements for capturing certain people who were making themselves troublesome to the government which he represented came to nothing; and it is to be hoped that other detectives, who are wise in their own conceit, will be edified by the revelations herein made.
In the chapters immediately following, I will relate the particulars of a series of operations, which, in many respects,
