What Bond is, obviously enough, is a secret agent. He sees himself in these terms, rather self-consciously, at a climactic point in Moonraker. Bearers of this designation, which no doubt belongs more to fiction and imagination than to life, have flourished at least since the turn of the century. It's a nebulous calling, ranging from the almost completely freelance status of a Bulldog Drummond to the straight Foreign Office employment of William le Queux's Duckworth Drew, one of the earliest pr...