Then they tied them up in a brown cord and Pee-wee took them out to the Fraud car.
Well that's about all there was to it, and I guess nothing more would have happened, if I hadn't untied the cord and picked up the book that lay on top.

It was a book about German history, princes and all that stuff, and I guess it wouldn't interest soldiers much.

Just as I was running through it, I happened to notice a piece of paper between the leaves, which I guess the old gentleman put there for a book-mark.

As soon as I picked it up and read it, I said, "Good night! Look at this," and I handed it to Mr.Ellsworth.
It said something about getting information to Hindenburg, and about how a certain German spy was in one of the American camps in France.
Mr.Ellsworth read it through two or three times, and then said, "Boys, this looks like a very serious matter.

You said the old gentleman spoke broken English, Walter ?" That's the name he always called Pee-wee.
"Cracky," I said, "Pee-wee's kindly old gentleman is a German spy." "Sure he is," said Westy Martin, "and he's only flying the American flag for a bluff, he's a deep dyed villain." "He can't be dyed very deep," said Doc Carson, in that sober way of his; "because we haven't any German dyes to dye him with." I was just going to say something to kid Pee-wee along, when I noticed that Mr.Ellsworth was very serious, and Pee-wee was staring like a ghost.
"Boys," Mr.Ellsworth said, "I have no idea of the full meaning of this paper." Then he said how maybe in collecting books we had caught a spy in our net.