Tattoo marks can be painted on the hands or arms, to be washed off
when you change your disguise.... Disguising by beginners is almost
invariably overdone in front and not enough behind.... Before
attempting to be a spy first set yourself to catch a spy, and thus
learn what faults to avoid as likely to give you away." [_Aids to
Scouting_, p. 136.]
It fell to my lot at one time to live as a plumber in South-east
London, and I grew a small "goatee" beard, which was rather in vogue
amongst men of that class at that time.
One day, in walking past the Naval and Military Club in Piccadilly
in my workman's get-up, I passed an old friend, a major in the
Horse Artillery, and almost without thinking I accosted him by his
regimental nickname. He stared and wondered, and then supposed that I
had been a man in his battery, and could not believe his eyes when I
revealed my identity.
I was never suspected by those among whom I went, and with whom I
became intimate. I had nominally injured my arm in an accident and
carried it in a sling, and was thus unable to work, or what was also a
blessing, to join in fights in which my friends from time to time got
involved. My special companion was one Jim Bates, a carpenter. I lost
sight of him for some years, and when next I met him he was one of the
crowd at a review at Aldershot, where I was in full rig as an Hussar
officer.
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