The "secret agent" line could well be the character making a joke within the story, not Marston being totally oblivious. Introducing a guest of honor to the audience at a luncheon or dinner by making a quip isn't that farfetched.
(Honest, folks: deliberate humor, wordplay, and irony weren't invented by Alan Moore in the 1980s -- believe it or not, some writers used those things before any of us were born!)
On the other hand, that second panel is the stuff of nightmares.