“You could find him almost any day until the break with Germany in a
small office in the Hamburg-American Building (a beehive of secret
agents) at No. 45 Broadway, New York. He was tall and slender, and
wore the somber frock coat of the European business man with real
grace. His eyes were blue and clear, his face clean-shaven and faintly
saber-scarred, and his hair blond. He impressed one as an unusual young
man in a highly responsible position. His greeting to visitors, of whom
he had few, was punctilious, his bow low, and his manner altogether
polite. He encouraged conversation rather than offered it. He had none
of the ‘hard snap’ of the energetic, outspoken, brusque American man of
business. Dr. Albert was a smooth-running, well-turned cog in the great
machine of Prussian militarism.