My business was to find a man to take this agent’s place.  The individual to whom I was sent was a ribbon manufacturer on one of the main streets, and, pretending a desire to visit his weaving rooms, we went to the manufactory in the upper stories, and then I disclosed, with no preamble, my mission.  The good man was in ecstasies, and to show his joy invited me down into his living apartments and introduced me to his wife, daughters, and the lover of one of his daughters, as a messenger from Kossuth!  If my hair did not rise on end, I am certain that at no crisis of my life could it ever have done so.  During my ten days’ stay in Vienna and the four weeks I afterward passed in Pesth, I never lost a nervous apprehension of the consequences of this singular imprudence, for I was in the enemy’s country, on business the slightest suspicion of which meant an obscure prison and complete disappearance from any friend.  With cipher dispatches on my person in the handwriting of Kossuth, well known to all the authorities, and with my secret in the possession of five women and two men, the uneasiness I felt for the first two or three days can better be imagined than expressed.  I did nothing all day long but walk the streets, drink coffee, and smoke cigars with constant apprehension of an arrest.

But I did not neglect my business.  I found a Hungarian whose name Kossuth had given me as the alternative probable medium of the renewed relations with Vienna, but he not only refused to have any relations with the late dictator, but strongly warned me of the possible consequences to myself of the mission I was on, and made me see very clearly that Kossuth overrated his influence on the Hungarians after the debacle, for which he was largely responsible.  But it never occurred to me that it was possible to withdraw or do less than obey my instructions.  I reported to Kossuth that the only person I could find who was willing to assume the responsibility of entering into relations with him was the ribbon-maker, and then, having acquired the confidence of the American consul, who was a zealous agent of the imperial government, and got his vise for Hungary, I made my way to Pesth.

Once on the scene of my real labors, I discovered how incompetent a conspirator Kossuth was.  He had given me the name of his correspondent in Pesth and his residence, in the Karolyisches Haus, as if that were his ordinary residence, without warning me, though he knew it, that he was really in hiding from the police, and probably only to be reached with precaution and indirectly.  Adopting the same tactics as in Vienna, and not to attract attention by inquiries, I went at once in a cab to the house.  The porter, of course, in reply to my inquiries, being in hearing of the cab-driver, who was probably a spy, denied any knowledge of such a person.  I drove back to the hotel, and then went on foot alone and asked again for the individual, but got the same reply, this time