Let me relate an incident to illustrate this: a month
ago I entered one of the largest of the New York hotels
which I will merely call the B. hotel without naming it:
to do so might blast it. We Spies, in fact, never _name_
a hotel. At the most we indicate it by a number known
only to ourselves, such as 1, 2, or 3.

On my presenting myself at the desk the clerk informed
me that he had no room vacant. I knew this of course to
be a mere subterfuge; whether or not he suspected that
I was a Spy I cannot say. I was muffled up, to avoid
recognition, in a long overcoat with the collar turned
up and reaching well above my ears, while the black beard
and the moustache, that I had slipped on in entering the
hotel, concealed my face. "Let me speak a moment to the
manager," I said. When he came I beckoned him aside and
taking his ear in my hand I breathed two words into it.
"Good heavens!" he gasped, while his face turned as pale
as ashes. "Is it enough?" I asked. "Can I have a room,
or must I breathe again?" "No, no," said the manager,
still trembling. Then, turning to the clerk: "Give this
gentleman a room," he said, "and give him a bath."

What these two words are that will get a room in New York
at once I must not divulge. Even now, when the veil of
secrecy is being lifted, the international interests
involved are too complicated to permit it. Suffice it to
say that if these two had failed I know a couple of others
still better.