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But an hour or two later a newspaper reporter called me up, asking if I had heard that the action of the University Club had been taken at the instance of William J. Burns, head of the Burns Detective Agency and chief of the United States Secret Service. Naturally, I was interested in that news; as a matter of tactics, when I find a man like Burns after me, I go to meet him head on. I at once telegraphed, asking Mr. Burns if it was true that he had called me “a dangerous enemy of the United States government.” The result was a tangle of falsehoods, and if I proceed to untangle them, do not think that I am rambling. Before we get through with this book we shall discover that the big private detective agencies are an important part of the educational system of the United States, and so what we learn about Mr. Burns and his methods will be to the point.

The great detective telegraphed me from San Francisco that my name had not been the subject of discussion at any time during his visit to Los Angeles. I was not satisfied with that, and telegraphed again, saying that I wanted to know if he had mentioned me at any time in Southern California, and if he had done so, would he say openly and for publication what he had said against me. In the meantime there had been published a United Press dispatch from San Francisco, quoting Mr. Burns as saying that if he had mentioned me, it had been “as a private individual and not as a government official.” Therefore I pointed out to Mr. Burns that he could not say anything about me as a private citizen; whatever he said would be assumed by everyone to be based upon information he had got as head of the United States Secret Service. This brought a second telegram from Mr. Burns, as follows: