In 1915, Hussein Ruhi was busily translating with profound consequences, the Hussein-McMahon correspondence. Hired by Sir Ronald Storrs, (Britain’s Oriental Secretary, spy, and later Governor of Jerusalem) as an agent and translator during the fomentation of the Arab Revolt, Ruhi plays a shadowy role, both in his capacity as an agent and as a figure in the archival record. He appears as a bit character in generally British-focused narratives of the Revolt, and intelligence during the First World War. T.E. Lawrence briefly refers to Ruhi as “more like a mandrake than a man” (perhaps in reference to his multiple wives and many children.) Ronald Storrs, who spent many more months with Ruhi gave him the code name “the Persian Mystic,” defining Ruhi as “A fair though not profound Arabist, and a better agent than scholar.” Ruhi himself, a petite spy, translator, poet and textbook author spent decades working for British officials, diplomats, spies, and educationalists, including a 15-year stint in the Department of Education in the Mandate for Palestine. The story of this extraordinary individual illustrates not only tactics of British espionage, but also the afterlife of an informant; the strange trends of government service in the Middle East during the interwar period, as well as the striking transnationalism brought to light by the division of the former Arab Provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Ruhi’s work as an agent for the British government during World War I was followed by decades in a different type of agency: as an inspector, writing reports on teachers and schools in Gaza and Jerusalem from 1920 through his retirement in 1935. His interactions with colleagues in the Mandate bureaucracy, as well as the British individuals who had hired him, point to the chameleon-like character of the man himself. They also underscore the nature of British control and strategy during the First World War and Mandate period, and the incongruity between nationality, language and citizenship in the region. This paper uses a combination of official and unofficial British sources, diaries, letters and personnel files to briefly trace the history of this extraordinary individual, and his impact on intelligence during and immediately after World War I.