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diff --git a/4781.txt b/4781.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..28a3abd --- /dev/null +++ b/4781.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7081 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Hohenzollerns in America, by Stephen Leacock +#8 in our series by Stephen Leacock + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Hohenzollerns in America + With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities + +Author: Stephen Leacock + +Release Date: December, 2003 [Etext #4781] +[This file was last updated on May 20, 2004] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN AMERICA *** + + + + +This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan + + + + +THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN AMERICA + +WITH THE BOLSHEVIKS IN BERLIN AND OTHER IMPOSSIBILITIES + +By Stephen Leacock + + + CONTENTS + +I. THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN AMERICA +II. WITH THE BOLSHEVIKS IN BERLIN +III. AFTERNOON TEA WITH THE SULTAN +IV. ECHOES OF THE WAR + 1. The Boy Who Came Back + 2. The War Sacrifices of Mr. Spugg + 3. If Germany Had Won + 4. War and Peace at the Galaxy Club + 5. The War News as I Remember It + 6. Some Just Complaints About the War + 7. Some Startling Side Effects of the War +V. OTHER IMPOSSIBILITIES + 1. The Art of Conversation + 2. Heroes and Heroines + 3. The Discovery of America + 4. Politics from Within + 5. The Lost Illusions of Mr. Sims + 6. Fetching the Doctor + + + + +I.--The Hohenzollerns in America + +PREFACE + +The proper punishment for the Hohenzollerns, and the +Hapsburgs, and the Mecklenburgs, and the Muckendorfs, +and all such puppets and princelings, is that they should +be made to work; and not made to work in the glittering +and glorious sense, as generals and chiefs of staff, and +legislators, and land-barons, but in the plain and humble +part of laborers looking for a job; that they should +carry a hod and wield a trowel and swing a pick and, at +the day's end, be glad of a humble supper and a night's +rest; that they should work, in short, as millions of +poor emigrants out of Germany have worked for generations +past; that there should be about them none of the prestige +of fallen grandeur; that, if it were possible, by some +trick of magic, or change of circumstance, the world +should know them only as laboring men, with the dignity +and divinity of kingship departed out of them; that, as +such, they should stand or fall, live or starve, as best +they might by the work of their own hands and brains. +Could this be done, the world would have a better idea +of the thin stuff out of which autocratic kingship is +fashioned. + +It is a favourite fancy of mine to imagine this +transformation actually brought about; and to picture +the Hohenzollerns as an immigrant family departing for +America, their trunks and boxes on their backs, their +bundles in their hands. + +The fragments of a diary that here follow present the +details of such a picture. It is written, or imagined to +be written, by the (former) Princess Frederica of +Hohenzollern. I do not find her name in the Almanach de +Gotha. Perhaps she does not exist. But from the text +below she is to be presumed to be one of the innumerable +nieces of the German Emperor. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +On Board the S.S. America. Wednesday + +At last our embarkation is over, and we are at sea. I am +so glad it is done. It was dreadful to see poor Uncle +William and Uncle Henry and Cousin Willie and Cousin +Ferdinand of Bulgaria, coming up the gang-plank into the +steerage, with their boxes on their backs. They looked +so different in their rough clothes. Uncle William is +wearing an old blue shirt and a red handkerchief round +his neck, and his hair looks thin and unkempt, and his +moustache draggled and his face unshaved. His eyes seem +watery and wandering, and his little withered arm so +pathetic. Is it possible he was always really like that? + +At the top of the gang-plank he stood still a minute, +his box still on his back, and said, "This then is the +pathway to Saint Helena." I heard an officer down on the +dock call up, "Now then, my man, move on there smartly, +please." And I saw some young roughs pointing at Uncle +and laughing and saying, "Look at the old guy with the +red handkerchief. Is he batty, eh?" + +The forward deck of the steamer, the steerage deck, which +is the only place that we are allowed to go, was crowded +with people, all poor and with their trunks and boxes +and paper bags all round them. When Uncle set down his +box, there was soon quite a little crowd around him, so +that I could hardly see him. But I could hear them +laughing, and I knew that they were "taking a rise out +of him," as they call it,--just as they did in the +emigration sheds on shore. I heard Uncle say, "Let wine +be brought: I am faint;" and some one else said, "Yes, +let it," and there arose a big shout of laughter. + +Cousin Willie had sneaked away with his box down to the +lower deck. I thought it mean of him not to stay with +his father. I never noticed till now what a sneaking face +Cousin Willie has. In his uniform, as Crown Prince, it +was different. But in his shabby clothes, among these +rough people, he seems so changed. He walks with a mean +stoop, and his eyes look about in such a furtive way, +never still. I saw one of the ship's officers watching +him, very closely and sternly. + +Cousin Karl of Austria, and Cousin Ruprecht of Bavaria, +are not here. We thought they were to come on this ship, +but they are not here. We could hardly believe that the +ship would sail without them. + +I managed to get Uncle William out of the crowd and down +below. He was glad to get off the deck. He seemed afraid +to look at the sea, and when we got into the big cabin, +he clutched at the cover of the port and said, "Shut it, +help me shut it, shut out the sound of the sea;" and then +for a little time he sat on one of the bunks all hunched +up, and muttering, "Don't let me hear the sea, don't let +me hear it." His eyes looked so queer and fixed, that I +thought he must be in a sort of fit, or seizure. But +Uncle Henry and Cousin Willie and Cousin Ferdinand came +into the cabin and he got better again. + +Cousin Ferdinand has got hold of a queer long overcoat +with the sleeves turned up, and a little round hat, and +looks exactly like a Jew. He says he traded one of our +empty boxes for the coat and hat. I never noticed before +how queer and thick Cousin Ferdinand's speech is, and +how much he gesticulates with his hands when he talks. +I am sure that when I visited at Sofia nobody ever +noticed it. And he called Uncle William and Uncle Henry +"Mister," and said that on the deck he had met two "fine +gentlemen," (that's what he called them), who are in the +clothing trade in New York. It was with them he traded +for the coat. + +Cousin Ferdinand, who is very clever at figures, is going +to look after all our money, because the American money +is too difficult for Uncle William and Cousin Willie to +understand. We have only a little money, but Cousin +Ferdinand said that we would put it all together and make +it a pool. But when Uncle Henry laughed, and turned his +pockets out and had no money at all, Cousin Ferdinand +said that it would NOT be a pool. He said he would make +it "on shares" and explained it, but I couldn't understand +what it meant. + +While he was talking I saw Cousin Willie slip one of the +pieces of money out of the pile into his pocket: at least +I think I saw it; but he did it so quickly that I was +not sure, and didn't like to say anything. + +Then a bell rang and we went to eat in a big saloon, all +crowded with common people, and very stuffy. The food +was wretched, and I could not eat. I suppose Uncle was +famished from the long waiting and the bad food in the +emigrant shed. It was dreadful to see the hungry way that +he ate the greasy stew they gave us, with his head down +almost in his plate and his moustache all unkempt. "This +ragout is admirable," he said. "Let the chef be informed +that I said it." + +Cousin Ferdinand didn't sit with us. He sat beside his +two new friends and they had their heads all close together +and talked with great excitement. I never knew before +that Cousin Ferdinand talked Yiddish. I remember him at +Sofia, on horseback addressing his army, and I don't +think he talked to his troops in Yiddish. He was telling +them, I remember, how sorry he was that he couldn't +accompany them to the front. But for "business in Sofia," +he said, he would like to be in the very front trenches, +the foremost of all. It was thought very brave of him. + +When we got up from supper, the ship was heaving and +rolling quite a bit. A young man, a steward, told us that +we were now out of the harbor and in the open sea. Uncle +William told him to convey his compliments to the captain +on his proper navigation of the channel. The young man +looked very closely at Uncle and said, "Sure, I'll tell +him right away," but he said it kindly. Then he said to +me, when Uncle couldn't hear, "Your pa ain't quite right, +is he, Miss Hohen?" I didn't know what he meant, but, of +course, I said that Uncle William was only my uncle. +Hohen is, I should explain, the name by which we are +known now. The young man said that he wasn't really a +steward, only just for the trip. He said that, because +I had a strange feeling that I had met him before, and +asked him if I hadn't seen him at one of the courts. But +he said he had never been "up before one" in his life. +He said he lives in New York, and drives an ice-wagon +and is an ice-man. He said he was glad to have the pleasure +of our acquaintance. He is, I think, the first ice-man +I have ever met. He reminds me very much of the Romanoffs, +the Grand Dukes of the younger branch, I mean. But he +says he is not connected with them, so far as he knows. +He said his name is Peters. We have no Almanach de Gotha +here on board the steamer, so I cannot look up his name. + + +S.S. America. Thursday + +We had a dreadful experience last night. In the middle +of the night Uncle Henry came and called me and said that +Uncle William was ill. So I put on an old shawl and went +with him. The ship was pitching and heaving with a dreadful +straining and creaking noise. A dim light burned in the +cabin, and outside there was a great roaring of the wind +and the wild sound of the sea surging against the ship. + +Uncle William was half sitting up in his rough bunk, with +the tattered gray blankets over him, one hand was clutched +on the side of the bed and there was a great horror in +his eyes. "The sea; the sea," he kept saying, "don't let +me hear it. It's THEIR voices. Listen! They're beating +at the sides of the ship. Keep them from me, keep them +out!" + +He was quiet for a minute, until there came another great +rush of the sea against the sides of the ship, and a roar +of water against the port. Then he broke out, almost +screaming--"Henry, brother Henry, keep them back! Don't +let them drag me down. I never willed it. I never wanted +it. Their death is not at my door. It was necessity. +Henry! Brother Henry! Tell them not to drag me below the +sea!" + +Like that he raved for perhaps an hour and we tried to +quiet him. Cousin Willie had slipped away, I don't know +where. Cousin Ferdinand was in his bunk with his back +turned. + +"Do I slip to-night, at all," he kept growling "or do I +not? Say, mister, do I get any slip at all?" + +But no one minded him. + +Then daylight came and Uncle fell asleep. His face looked +drawn and gray and the cords stood out on his withered +hand, which was clutched against his shirt. + +So he slept. It seemed so strange. There was no court +physician, no bulletins to reassure the world that he +was sleeping quietly. + +Later in the morning I saw the ship's doctor and the +captain, all in uniform, with gold braid, walking on +their inspection round. + +"You had some trouble here last night," I heard the +captain say. + +"No, nothing," the doctor answered, "only one of the +steerage passengers delirious in the night." + +Later in the morning the storm had gone down and the sea +was calm as glass, and Uncle Henry and I got Uncle William +up on deck. Mr. Peters, the steward that I think I spoke +about before, got us a steamer chair from the first class +that had been thrown away--quite good except for one +leg,--and Uncle William sat in it with his face away from +the sea. He seemed much shaken and looked gray and tired, +but he talked quite quietly and rationally about our +going to America, and how we must all work, because work +is man's lot. He himself, he says, will take up the +presidency of Harvard University in New York, and Uncle +Henry, who, of course, was our own Grand Admiral and is +a sailor, will enter as Admiral of the navy of one of +the states, probably, Uncle says, the navy of Missouri, +or else that of Colorado. + +It was pleasant to hear Uncle William talk in this way, +just as quietly and rationally as at Berlin, and with +the same grasp of political things. He only got excited +once, and that was when he was telling Uncle Henry that +it was his particular wish that Uncle should go to the +captain and offer to take over the navigation of the +vessel. Uncle Henry is a splendid sailor, and in all our +cruises in the Baltic he used to work out all the navigation +of the vessel, except, of course, the arithmetic--which +was beneath him. + +Uncle Henry laughed (he is always so good natured) and +said that he had had enough of being Admiral to last him +all his life. But when Uncle William insisted, he said +he would see what he could do. + + +S.S. America. Friday + +All yesterday and to-day the sea was quite calm, and we +could sit on deck. I was glad because, in the cabin where +I am, there are three other women, and it is below the +water-line, and is very close and horrid. So when it is +rough, I can only sit in the alley-way with my knitting. +There the light is very dim and the air bad. But I do +not complain. It is woman's lot. Uncle William and Cousin +Willie have both told me this--that it is woman's lot to +bear and to suffer; and they said it with such complete +resignation that I feel I ought to imitate their attitude. + +Cousin Ferdinand, too, is very brave about the dirt and +the discomfort of being on board the ship. He doesn't +seem to mind the dirt at all, and his new friends (Mr. +Sheehan and Mr. Mosenhammer) seem to bear it so well, +too. Uncle Henry goes and washes his hands and face at +one of the ship's pumps before every meal, with a great +noise and splashing, but Cousin Ferdinand says, "For me +the pump, no." He says that nothing like that matters +now, and that his only regret is that he did not fall at +the head of his troops, as he would have done if he had +not been detained by business. + +I caught sight of Cousin Karl of Austria! So it seems he +is on the ship after all. He was up on the promenade deck +where the first class passengers are, and of which you +can just see one end from down here in the steerage. +Cousin Karl had on a waiter's suit and was bringing +something to drink to two men who were in steamer chairs +on the deck. I don't know whether he saw me or not, but +if he did he didn't give any sign of recognizing me. One +of the men gave Cousin Karl a piece of money and I was +sure it was he, from the peculiar, cringing way in which +he bowed. It was just the manner that he used to have at +Vienna with his cousin, Franz Ferdinand, and with dear +old Uncle Franz Joseph. + +We always thought, we girls I mean, that it was Cousin +Karl who had Cousin Franz Ferdinand blown up at Serajevo. +I remember once we dared Cousin Zita, Karl's wife, to +ask Uncle William if it really was Karl. But Uncle William +spoke very gravely, and said that it was not a thing for +us to discuss, and that if Karl did it, it was an "act +of State," and no doubt very painful to Cousin Karl to +have to do. Zita asked Uncle if Karl poisoned dear old +Uncle Franz Joseph, because some of Karl's best and most +intimate friends said that he did. But Uncle said very +positively, "No," that dear old Uncle Franz Joseph had +not needed any poison, but had died, very naturally, +under the hands of Uncle William's own physician, who +was feeling his wind-pipe at the time. + +Of course, all these things seem very far away now. But +seeing Cousin Karl on the upper deck, reminded me of all +the harmless gossip and tattle that used to go on among +us girls in the old days. + + +Friday afternoon + +I saw Cousin Willie on the deck this afternoon. I had +not seen him all day yesterday as he seems to keep out +of sight. His eyes looked bloodshot and I was sure that +he had been drinking. + +I asked him where he had been in the storm while Uncle +William was ill. He gave a queer sort of leering chuckle +and said, "Over there," and pointed backwards with his +thumb towards the first class part of the ship. Then he +said, "Come here a minute," and he led me round a corner +to where no one could see, and showed me a gold brooch +and two diamond rings. He told me not to tell the others, +and then he tried to squeeze my hand and to pull me +towards him, in such a horrid way, but I broke away and +went back. Since then I have been trying to think how he +could have got the brooch and the rings. But I cannot +think. + + +S.S. America. Saturday + +To-day when I went up on deck, the first thing I saw was +Uncle Henry. I hardly recognized him. He had on an old +blue sailor's jersey, and was cleaning up a brass rail +with a rag. I asked him why he was dressed like that and +Uncle Henry laughed and said he had become an admiral. +I couldn't think what he meant, as I never guess things +with a double meaning, so he explained that he has got +work as a sailor for the voyage across. I thought he +looked very nice in his sailor's jersey, much nicer than +in the coat with gold facings, when he was our High +Admiral. He reminded me very much of those big fair-haired +Norwegian sailors that we used to see when we went on +the Meteor to Flekkefyord and Gildeskaale. I am sure that +he will be of great service to this English captain, in +helping to work the ship across. + +When Cousin Ferdinand came up on deck with his two friends, +Mr. Mosenhammer and Mr. Sheehan, he was very much interested +in Uncle Henry's having got work. He made an arrangement +right away that he would borrow Uncle Henry's wages, and +that Mr. Sheehan would advance them, and he would then +add it to our capital, and then he would take it and keep +it. Uncle Henry is to get what is called, in the new +money, one seventy-five a day, and to get it for four +days, and Cousin Ferdinand says that comes to four dollars +and a quarter. Cousin Ferdinand is very quick with figures. +He says that he will have to take out a small commission +for managing the money for Uncle Henry, and that later +on he will tell Uncle Henry how much will be left after +taking it out. Uncle Henry said all right and went on +with his brass work. It is strange how his clothes seem +to change him. He looks now just like a rough, common +sailor. + + +S.S. America. Tuesday + +To-day our voyage is to end. I am so glad. When we came +on deck Mr. Peters told me that we were in sight of land. +He told me the names of the places, but they were hard +and difficult to remember, like Long Island and Sandy +Hook; not a bit like our dear old simple German names. + +So we were all told to put our things together and get +ready to land. I got, out of one of our boxes, an old +frock coat for Uncle William. It is frayed at the ends +of the sleeves and it shines a little, but I had stitched +it here and there and it looked quite nice. He put it on +with a pair of gray trousers that are quite good, and +not very much bagged, and I had knitted for him a red +necktie that he wears over his blue shirt with a collar, +called a celluloid collar, that American gentlemen wear. + +The sea is so calm that Uncle doesn't mind being on deck +now, and he even came close to the bulwarks, which he +wouldn't do all the way across. He stood there in quite +an attitude with his imperfect hand folded into his coat. +He looked something, but not quite, as he used to look +on the deck of the Meteor in the Baltic. + +Presently he said, "Henry, your arm!" and walked up and +down with Uncle Henry. I could see that the other passengers +were quite impressed with the way Uncle looked, and it +pleased him. I heard some rough young loafers saying, +"Catch on to the old Dutch, will you? Eh, what?" + +Uncle Henry is going ashore just as he is, in his blue +jersey. But Cousin Ferdinand has put on a bright red tie +that Mr. Mosenhammer has loaned to him for three hours. + +Cousin Willie only came on deck at the very last minute, +and he seemed anxious to slink behind the other passengers +and to keep out of sight. I think it must have something +to do with the brooch that he showed me, and the rings. +His eyes looked very red and bloodshot and his face more +crooked and furtive than ever. I am sure that he had been +drinking again. + +I have written the last lines of this diary sitting on +the deck. We have just passed a huge statue that rises +out of the water, the name of which they mentioned but +I can't remember, as it was not anything I ever heard of +before. + +Just think--in a little while we shall land in America! + + + + +CHAPTER II + +City New York. 2nd Avenue + +We came off the steamer late yesterday afternoon and came +across the city to a pension on Second Avenue where we +are now. Only here they don't call it a pension but a +boarding house. Cousin Ferdinand and Cousin Willie drove +across in the cart with our boxes, and Uncle William and +Uncle Henry and I came on a street car. It cost us fifteen +cents. A cent is four and one-sixth pfennigs. We tried +to reckon what it came to, but we couldn't; but Uncle +Henry thinks it could be done. + +This house is a tall house in a mean street, crowded and +noisy with carts and street-sellers. I think it would be +better to have all the boarding houses stand far back +from the street with elm trees and fountains and lawns +where peacocks could walk up and down. I am sure it would +be MUCH better. + +We have taken a room for Uncle William and Uncle Henry +on the third floor at the back and a small room in the +front for me of the kind called a hall bedroom, which I +don't ever remember seeing before. There were none at +Sans Souci and none, I think, at any of the palaces. +Cousin Willie has a room at the top of the house, and +Cousin Ferdinand in the basement. + +The landlady of this house is very stout and reminds me +very much of the Grand Duchess of Sondersburg-Augustenburg: +her manner when she showed us the rooms was very like +that of the Grand Duchess; only perhaps a little firmer +and more authoritative. But it appears that they are +probably not related, as the landlady's name is Mrs. +O'Halloran, which is, I think, Scotch. + +When we arrived it was already time for dinner so we went +downstairs to it at once. The dining-room was underground +in the basement. It was very crowded and stuffy, and +there was a great clatter of dishes and a heavy smell of +food. Most of the people were already seated, but there +was an empty place at the head of one of the tables and +Uncle William moved straight towards that. Uncle was +wearing, as I said, his frock coat and his celluloid +collar and he walked into the room with quite an air, in +something of the way that he used to come into the great +hall of the Neues Palais at Potsdam, only that in these +clothes it looked different. As Uncle entered the room +he waved his hand and said, "Let no one rise!" I remember +that when Uncle said this at the big naval dinner at Kiel +it made a great sensation as an example of his ready +tact. He realised that if they had once risen there would +have been great difficulty in their order of procedure +for sitting down again. He was afraid that the same +difficulty might have been felt here in the boarding +house. But I don't think it would, and I don't think that +they were going to stand up, anyway. They just went on +eating. I noticed one cheap-looking young man watching +Uncle with a sort of half smile as he moved towards his +seat. I heard him say to his neighbour, "Some scout, eh?" + +The food was so plain and so greasy that I could hardly +eat it. But I have noticed that it is a strange thing +about Uncle that he doesn't seem to know what he eats at +all. He takes all this poor stuff that they put before +him to be the same delicacies that we had at the Neues +Palais and Sans Souci. "Is this a pheasant?" he asked +when the servant maid passed him his dish of meat. I +heard the mean young man whisper, "I guess not." Presently +some hash was brought in and Uncle said, "Ha! A Salmi! +Ha! excellent!" I could see that Mrs. O'Halloran, the +landlady, who sat at the other end of the table, was +greatly pleased. + +I was surprised to find--because it is so hard to get +used to the change of things in our new life--that all +the people went on talking just the same after Uncle sat +down. At the palace at Potsdam nobody ever spoke at dinner +unless Uncle William first addressed him, and then he +was supposed to give a sort of bow and answer as briefly +as possible so as not to interrupt the flow of Uncle +William's conversation. Generally Uncle talked and all +the rest listened. His conversation was agreed by everybody +to be wonderful. Princes, admirals, bishops, artists, +scholars and everybody united in declaring that Uncle +William showed a range of knowledge and a brilliance of +language that was little short of marvellous. So naturally +it was a little disappointing at first to find that these +people just went on talking to one another and didn't +listen to Uncle William at all, or merely looked at him +in an inquisitive sort of way and whispered remarks to +one another. But presently, I don't just know how, Uncle +began to get the attention of the table and one after +the other the people stopped talking to listen to him. +I was very glad of this because Uncle was talking about +America and I was sure that it would interest them, as +what he said was very much the same as the wonderful +speech that he made to the American residents of Berlin +at the time when the first exchange professor was sent +over to the University. I remember that all the Americans +who heard it said that Uncle told them things about their +own country that they had never known, or even suspected, +before. So I was glad when I heard Uncle explaining to +these people the wonderful possibilities of their country. +He talked of the great plains of Connecticut and the huge +seaports of Pittsburg and Colorado Springs, and the +tobacco forests of Idaho till one could just see it all. +He said that the Mississippi, which is a great river here +as large as the Weser, should be dammed back and held +while a war of extermination was carried on against the +Indians on the other side of it with a view to +Christianizing them. The people listened, their faces +flushed with eating and with the close air. Here and +there some of them laughed or nudged one another and +said, "Get on to this, will you?" But I remember that +when Uncle William made this speech in Berlin the Turkish +ambassador said after it that he now knew so much about +America that he wanted to die, and that the Shah of Persia +wrote a letter to Uncle, all in his own writing, except +the longest words, and said that he had ordered Uncle's +speech on America to be printed and read aloud by all +the schoolmasters in Persia under penalty of decapitation. +Nearly all of them read it. + + +Wednesday + +This morning we had a great disappointment. It had been +pretty well arranged on board the ship that Uncle would +take over the presidency of Harvard University. Uncle +Henry and Cousin Ferdinand and Cousin Willie had all +consented to it, and we looked upon it as done. Now it +seems there is a mistake. First of all Harvard University +is not in New York, as we had always thought in Germany +that it was. I remember that when Uncle Henry came home +from his great tour in America, in which he studied +American institutions so profoundly, and made his report +he said that Harvard University was in New York. Uncle +had this information filed away in our Secret Service +Department. + +But it seems that it is somewhere else. The University +here is called Columbia, so Uncle decided that he would +be president of that. In the old days all the great men +of learning used to assure Uncle that if fate had not +made him an emperor he would have been better fitted than +any living man to be the head of a great university. +Uncle admitted this himself, though he resented being +compared only to the living ones. + +So it was a great disappointment to-day when they refused +to give him the presidency. I went with him to the college, +but I cannot quite understand what happened or why they +won't give it to him. We walked all the way up and I +carried a handbag filled with Uncle's degrees and diplomas +from Oxford and all over the world. All the way up Uncle +talked about the majesty and the freedom of learning and +what he would do to the college when he was made president, +and how all the professors should sit up and obey him. +At times he got so excited that he would stop on the +street and wave his hands and gesticulate so that people +turned and looked at him. At Potsdam we never realized +that Uncle was excited all the time, and, in any case, +with his uniform on and his sabre clattering as he walked, +it all seemed different. But here in the street, in his +faded frock coat and knitted tie, and with his face +flushed and his eyes rambling, people seemed to mistake +it and thought that his mind was not quite right. + +So I think he made a wrong impression when we went into +the offices of the college. Uncle was still quite excited +from his talking. "Let the trustees be brought," he said +in a peremptory way to the two young men in black frock +coats, secretaries of some sort, I suppose, who received +us. Then he turned to me. "Princess," he said, "my +diplomas!" He began pulling them out of the bag and +throwing them on the table in a wild sort of way. The +other people waiting in the room were all staring at him. +Then the young men took Uncle by the arm and led him into +an inner room and I went out into the corridor and waited. +Presently one of the young men came out and told me not +to wait, as Uncle had been sent home in a cab. He was +very civil and showed me where to go to get the elevated +railroad. But while I was waiting I had overheard some +of the people talking about Uncle. One said, "That's that +same old German that was on board our ship last week in +the steerage--has megalomania or something of the sort, +they say, and thinks he's the former Emperor: I saw the +Kaiser once at a review in Berlin,--not much resemblance, +is there?" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +For weeks and weeks I have written nothing in my diary +because it has been so discouraging. After Uncle William's +offer to take over the presidency of Columbia University +had been refused, he debated with Uncle Henry and with +Cousin Ferdinand of Bulgaria (who is not living in our +boarding house now but who comes over quite often in the +evenings) whether he would accept the presidency of +Harvard. Cousin Ferdinand looked up the salary in a book +and told him not to take it. Cousin Ferdinand has little +books with all the salaries of people in America and he +says that these books are fine and much better than the +Almanach de Gotha which we used to use in Europe to hunt +people up. He says that if he ever goes back to be King +of Bulgaria again he is going to introduce books like +these. Cousin Ferdinand is getting very full of American +ideas and he says that what you want to know about a man +is not his line of descent but his line of credit. And +he says that the whole King business in Europe has been +mismanaged. He says that there should have been millions +in it. I forgot to say in my diary sooner that Cousin +Ferdinand's two friends, Mr. Mosenhammer and Mr. Sheehan, +took him into their clothing business at once as a sort +of partner. The reason was that they found that he could +wear clothes; the effect on the customers when they see +Cousin Ferdinand walking up and down in front of the +store is wonderful. Of course all kings can wear clothes +and in the old days in the Potsdam palace we thought +nothing of it. But Cousin Ferdinand says that the kings +should have known enough to stop trying to be soldiers +and to put themselves at the head of the export clothing +trade. He wishes, he says, that he had some of his +Bulgarian generals here now in their blue coats trimmed +with black fur; he says that with a little alteration, +which he showed us how to do, he could have sent them +out "on the road," wherever that is, and have made the +biggest boom in gentlemen's winter fur trimmings that +the trade ever saw. + +Cousin Ferdinand, when he comes over in the evenings now, +is always beautifully dressed and I can notice that Mrs. +O'Halloran, the landlady, is much impressed with him. I +am glad of this because we have not yet been able to pay +her any money and I was afraid she might say something +about it. But what is stranger is that now that Cousin +Ferdinand has good clothes, Uncle William and Uncle Henry +seem much impressed too. Uncle Henry looks so plain and +common in his sailor's jersey, and Uncle William in his +old frock coat looks faded and shabby and his face always +vacant and wondering. So now when Cousin Ferdinand comes +in they stand up and get a chair for him and listen to +his advice on everything. + +So, as I said, Cousin Ferdinand looked up the salary of +the President of Harvard in a book and he was strongly +against Uncle William's taking the position. But Uncle +William says this kind of position is the nearest thing +in this country to what he had in Germany. He thinks that +he could do for Harvard what he did for Germany. He has +written out on a big sheet of paper all the things that +he calls the Chief Needs of America, because he is always +busy like this and never still. I forget the whole list, +especially as he changes it every day according to the +way that people treat Uncle William on the street, but +the things that he always puts first are Culture, Religion, +and Light. These he says he can supply, and he thought +that the presidency of Harvard would be the best place +to do it from. In the end he accepted the position against +Cousin Ferdinand's advice, or at least I mean he said +that he would be willing to take it and he told Uncle +Henry to pack up all his degrees and diplomas and to send +them to Harvard and say that he was coming. + +So it was dreadfully disappointing when all the diplomas +came back again by the next post. There was a letter with +them but I didn't see it, as Uncle William tore it into +fragments and stamped on it. He said he was done with +American universities for ever: I have never seen him so +furious: he named over on his fingers all the American +professors that he had fed at Berlin, one meal each and +sometimes even two,--Uncle has a wonderful memory for +things like that,--and yet this was their gratitude. He +walked up and down his room and talked so wildly and +incoherently that if I had not known and been told so +often by our greatest authorities in Germany how beautifully +balanced Uncle William's brain is, I should have feared +that he was wandering. + +But presently he quieted down and said with deep earnestness +that the American universities must now go to ruin in +their own way. He was done with them. He said he would +go into a cloister and spend his life in quiet adoration, +provided that he could find anything to adore, which, he +said, in his station was very doubtful. But half an hour +later he was quite cheerful again,--it is wonderful how +quickly Uncle William's brain recovers itself,--and said +that a cloister was too quiet and that he would take a +position as Governor of a State; there are a great many +of these in this country and Uncle spent days and days +writing letters to them and when the answers came in-- +though some never answered at all--Uncle William got into +the same state of fury as about the Presidency of Harvard. +So, naturally, each day seemed more disappointing than +the last, especially with the trouble that we have been +having with Cousin Willie, of which I have not spoken +yet, and I was getting quite disheartened until last +evening, when everything seemed to change. + +We all knew, of course, that Uncle William is the greatest +artist in the world, but no one liked to suggest that he +should sell his pictures for money, a thing that no prince +was ever capable of doing. Yet I could not but feel glad +when Uncle decided yesterday that he would stoop to make +his living by art. It cost him a great struggle to make +this decision, but he talked it over very fully last +night with Uncle Henry, after Uncle Henry came home from +work, and the resolution is taken. + +Of course, Uncle always had a wonderful genius for +painting. I remember how much his pictures used to be +admired at the court at Berlin. I have seen some of the +best painters stand absolutely entranced,--they said so +themselves,--in front of Uncle's canvasses. I remember +one of the greatest of our artists saying one day to +Uncle in the Potsdam Gallery, "Now, which of these two +pictures is yours and which is Michel Angelo's: I never +can tell you two apart." Uncle gave him the order of the +Red Swan. Another painter once said that if Uncle's genius +had been developed he would have been the greatest painter +of modern times. Uncle William, I remember, was dreadfully +angry. He said it WAS developed. + +So it seemed only natural that Uncle should turn to Art +to make our living. But he hesitated because there is +some doubt whether a person of noble birth can sell +anything for money. But Uncle says Tintoretto the great +Italian artist had two quarterings of nobility, and +Velasquez had two and a half. + +Luckily we have with us among our things Uncle's easel +and his paints that he used in Berlin. He had always to +have special things because he doesn't use little brushes +and tubes of colour as ordinary artists do, but had a +big brush and his paint in a tin can, so that he can work +more quickly. Fortunately we have with us three of Uncle's +pictures rolled up in the bottom of our boxes. He is +going to sell these first and after that he says that he +will paint one or two every day. One of the three canvasses +that we have is an allegorical picture called "Progress" +in which Progress is seen coming out of a cloud in the +background with Uncle William standing in the foreground. +Another is called "Modern Science" and in this Science +is seen crouched in the dark in the background and Uncle +William standing in the light in the foreground. The +other is called "Midnight in the Black Forest." Uncle +William did it in five minutes with a pot of black paint. +They say it is impressionistic. + +So all the evening Uncle William and Uncle Henry talked +about the new plan. It is wonderful how Uncle William +enters into a thing. He got me to fetch him his old blue +blouse, which was with the painting things, and he put +it on over his clothes and walked up and down the room +with a long paint-brush in his hand. "We painters, my +dear Henry," he said, "must not be proud. America needs +Art. Very good. She shall have it." + +I could see, of course, that Uncle William did not like +the idea of selling pictures for money. But he is going +to make that side of it less objectionable by painting +a picture, a very large picture, for nothing and giving +it to the big Metropolitan Art Gallery which is here. +Uncle has already partly thought it out. It is to be +called the "Spirit of America" and in it the Spirit of +America will be seen doubled up in the background: Uncle +has not yet fully thought out the foreground, but he says +he has an idea. + +In any case he is going to refuse to take anything more +than a modest price for his pictures. Beyond that, he +says, not one pfennig. + +So this morning Uncle rolled up his three canvasses under +his arm and has gone away to sell them. + +I am very glad, as we have but little money, indeed hardly +any except Uncle Henry's wages. And I have been so worried, +too, and surprised since we came here about Cousin Willie. +He hardly is with the rest of us at all. He is out all +night and sleeps in the day time, and often I am sure +that he has been drinking. One morning when he came back +to the house at about breakfast time he showed me quite +a handful of money, but wouldn't say where he got it. He +said there was lots more where it came from. I asked him +to give me some to pay Mrs. O'Halloran, but he only +laughed in his leering way and said that he needed it +all. At another time when I went up to Cousin Willie's +room one day when he was out, I saw quite a lot of silver +things hidden in a corner of the cupboard. They looked +like goblets and silver dinner things, and there was a +revolver and a sheath-knife hidden with them. I began to +think that he must have stolen all these things, though +it seemed impossible for a prince. I have spoken to Uncle +William several times about Cousin Willie, but he gets +impatient and does not seem to care. Uncle never desires +very much to talk of people other than himself. I think +it fatigues his mind. In any case, he says that he has +done for Willie already all that he could. He says he +had him confined to a fortress three times and that four +times he refused to have him in his sight for a month, +and that twice he banished him to a country estate for +six weeks. His duty, he says, is done. I said that I was +afraid that Cousin Willie had been stealing and told him +about the silver things hidden in the cupboard. But Uncle +got very serious and read me a very severe lecture. No +prince, he said, ever stole. His son, he explained, might +very well be collecting souvenirs as memorials of his +residence in America: all the Hohenzollerns collected +souvenirs: some of our most beautiful art things at +Potsdam and Sans Souci were souvenirs collected by our +ancestors in France fifty years ago. Uncle said that if +the Great War had turned out as it should and if his +soldiers had not betrayed him by getting killed, we should +have had more souvenirs than ever. After that he dismissed +the subject from his mind. Uncle William can dismiss +things from his mind more quickly than anybody I ever +knew. + + +The Same Day. Later + +I was so surprised this afternoon, when I happened to go +down to the door, to see Mr. Peters, the ice gentleman +that was on the ship, with his ice cart delivering ice +into the basement. I knew that he delivered ice in this +part of the city because he said so, and I think he had +mentioned this street, and two or three times I thought +I had seen him from the window. But it did seem surprising +to happen to go down to the door (I forget what I went +for) at the moment that he was there. He looked very fine +in his big rough suit of overalls. It is not quite like +a military uniform, but I think it looks better. Mr. +Peters knew me at once. "Good afternoon, Miss Hohen," he +said (that is the name, as I think I said, that we have +here), "how are all the folks?" + +So we talked for quite a little time, and I told him +about Uncle trying to get work and how hard it was and +how at last he had got work, or at least had gone out to +get it, as a painter. Mr. Peters said that that was fine. +He said that painters do well here: he has a lot of +friends who are painters and they get all the way from +sixty to seventy-five cents an hour. It seems so odd to +think of them being paid by the hour. I don't think the +court artists at home were paid like that. It will be +very nice if Uncle William can mingle with Mr. Peters's +artist friends. Mr. Peters asked if he might take me out +some Sunday, and I said that I would ask Uncle William +and Uncle Henry and Cousin Ferdinand and Cousin Willie +and if they all consented to come I would go. I hope it +was not a forward thing to do. + +I forgot when I was talking of work to say that Uncle +Henry got work the very second day that we were here. He +works down at the docks where the ships are. I think he +supervises the incoming and outgoing of the American +navy. It is called being a stevedore, and no doubt his +being an Admiral helped him to get it. He hopes to get +a certificate presently to be a Barge Master, which will +put him in charge of the canals. But there is a very +difficult examination to go through and Uncle Henry is +working for it at night out of a book. He has to take up +Vulgar Fractions which, of course, none of our High Seas +Command were asked to learn. But Uncle Henry is stooping +to them. + +So now, I think, everything will go well. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Uncle's art has failed. It was only yesterday that I was +writing in my memoirs of how cheerful and glad I felt to +think that Uncle William was going to be able to make +his living by art, and now everything is changed again. +All the time that Uncle was out on his visit to the +picture dealers, I was making plans and thinking what we +would do with the money when it came in, so it is very +disappointing to have it all come to nothing. I don't +know just what happened because Uncle William never gives +any details of things. His mind moves too rapidly for +that. But he came home with his pictures still under his +arm in a perfect fury and raged up and down his room, +using very dreadful language. + +But after a little while when he grew calmer he explained +to me that the Americans are merely swineheads and that +art, especially art such as his, is wasted on them. Uncle +says that he has no wish to speak harshly of the Americans, +but they are pig-dogs. He bears them no ill-will, he +says, for what they have done and his heart is free of +any spirit of vengeance, but he wishes he had his heel +on their necks for about half a minute. He said this with +such a strange dreadful snarl that for the moment his +face seemed quite changed. But presently when he recovered +himself he got quite cheerful again, and said that it +was perhaps unseemly in him, as the guest of the American +people, to say anything against them. It is strange how +Uncle always refers to himself as the guest of the American +people. Living in this poor place, in these cheap +surroundings, it seems so odd. Often at our meals in the +noisy dining-room down in the basement, in the speeches +that he makes to the boarders, he talks of himself as +the guest of America and he says, "What does America ask +in return? Nothing." I can see that Mrs. O'Halloran, the +landlady, doesn't like this, because we have not paid +her anything for quite a long time, and she has spoken +to me about it in the corridor several times. + +But when Uncle William makes speeches in the dining-room +I think the whole room becomes transformed for him into +the banquet room of a palace, and the cheap bracket lamps +against the wall turn into a blaze of light and the +boarders are all courtiers, and he becomes more and more +grandiloquent. He waves his hand towards Uncle Henry and +refers to him as "my brother the Admiral," and to me as +"the Princess at my side." Some of the people, the meaner +ones, begin to laugh and to whisper, and others look +uncomfortable and sorry. And it is always on these +occasions that Uncle William refers to himself as America's +guest, and refers to the Americans as the hospitable +nation who have taken him to their heart. I think that +when Uncle says this he really believes it; Uncle can +believe practically anything if he says it himself. + +So, as I say, when he came home yesterday, after failing +to sell his pictures, he was at first furious and then +he fell into his other mood and he said that, as the +guest of a great people, he had found out at last the +return he could make to them. He said that he would +organise a School of Art, and as soon as he had got the +idea he was carried away with it at once and seized a +pencil and paper and began making plans for the school +and drawing up a list of the instructors needed. He asked +first who could be Principal, or President, of the School, +and decided that he would have to be that himself as he +knew of no one but himself who had the peculiar power of +organisation needed for it. All the technical instructors, +he said, must be absolutely the best, each one a master +in his own line. So he wrote down at the top of his list, +Instructor in Oils, and reflected a little, with his head +in his hand, as to who could do that. Presently he sighed +and said that as far as he knew there was no one; he'd +have to do that himself. Then he wrote down Instructor +in Water Colour, and as soon as he had written it he said +right off that he would have to take that over too; there +was no one else that he could trust it to. Then he said, +"Now, let me see, Perspective, Freehand, and Crayon Work. +I need three men: three men of the first class. Can I +get them? I doubt it. Let me think what can be done." + +He walked up and down the room a little with his hands +behind his back and his head sunk in thought while he +murmured, "Three men? Three men? But Ha! why THREE? Why +not, if sufficiently gifted, ONE man?" + +But just when he was saying this there was a knock at +the door and Mrs. O'Halloran came in. I knew at once what +she had come for, because she had been threatening to do +it, and so I felt dreadfully nervous when she began to +say that our bill at the house had gone unpaid too long +and that we must pay her at once what we owed her. It +took some time before Uncle William understood what she +was talking about, but when he did he became dreadfully +frigid and polite. He said, "Let me understand clearly, +madame, just what it is that you wish to say: do I +apprehend that you are saying that my account here for +our maintenance is now due and payable?" Mrs. O'Halloran +said yes, she was. And Uncle said, "Let me endeavour to +grasp your meaning exactly: am I correct in thinking that +you mean I owe you money?" Mrs. O'Halloran said that was +what she meant. Uncle said, "Let me try to apprehend just +as accurately as possible what it is that you are trying +to tell me: is my surmise correct that you are implying +that it is time that I settled up my bill?" + +Mrs. O'Halloran said, "Yes," but I could see that by this +time she was getting quite flustered because there was +something so dreadfully chilling in Uncle's manner: his +tone in a way was courtesy itself, but there was something +in it calculated to make Mrs. O'Halloran feel that she +had committed a dreadful breach in what she had done. +Uncle William told me afterwards that to mention money +to a prince is not a permissible thing, and that no true +Hohenzollern has ever allowed the word "bill" to be said +in his presence, and that for this reason he had tried, +out of courtesy, to give the woman every chance to withdraw +her words and had only administered a reprimand to her +when she failed to do so. Certainly it was a dreadful +rebuke that he gave her. He told her that he must insist +on this topic being dismissed and never raised again: +that he could allow no such discussion: the subject was +one, he said, that he must absolutely refuse to entertain: +he did not wish, he said, to speak with undue severity, +but he had better make it plain that if there were any +renewal of this discussion he should feel it impossible +to remain in the house. + +While Uncle William was saying all this Mrs. O'Halloran +was getting more and more confused and angry, and when +Uncle finally opened the door for her with cold dignity, +she backed out of it and found herself outside the room +without seeming to know what she was doing. Presently I +could hear her down in the scullery below, rattling dishes +and saying that she was just as good as anybody. + +But Uncle William seemed to be wonderfully calmed and +elevated after this scene, and said, "Princess, bring me +my flute." I brought it to him and he sat by the window +and leaned his head out over the back lane and played +our dear old German melodies, till somebody threw a boot +at him. The people about here are not musical. But meantime +Uncle William had forgotten all about the School of Art, +and he said no more about it. + + +Next Day + +To-day a dreadful thing has happened. The police have +come into the house and have taken Cousin Willie away. +He is now in a place called The Tombs, and Mr. Peters +says that he will be sent to the great prison at Sing-Sing. +He is to be tried for robbery and for stabbing with intent +to kill. + +It was very dreadful when they came to take him. I was +so glad that Uncle William was not here to see it all. +But it was in the morning and he had gone out to see a +steamship company about being president of it, and I was +tidying up our rooms, because Mrs. O'Halloran won't tidy +them up any more or let the coloured servant tidy them +up until we pay her more money. She said that to me, but +I think she is afraid to say it to Uncle William. So I +mean to do the work now while Uncle is out and not let +him know. + +This morning, in the middle of the morning, while I was +working, all of a sudden I heard the street door open +and slam and some one rushing up the stairway: and then +Cousin Willie broke into the room, all panting and excited, +and his face grey with fright and gasping out, "Hide me, +hide me!" He ran from room to room whining and hysterical, +and his breath coming in a sort of sob, but he seemed +incapable of deciding what to do. I would have hidden +him if I could, but at the very next moment I heard the +policemen coming in below, and the voice of the landlady. +Then they came upstairs, big strong-looking men in blue, +any one of whom could have choked Cousin Willie with one +hand. Cousin Willie ran to and fro like a cornered rat, +and two of the men seized him and then I think he must +have been beside himself with fear for I saw his teeth +bite into the man's hand that held him, and one of the +policemen struck him hard with his wooden club across +the head and he fell limp to the floor. They dragged him +down the stairway like that and I followed them down, +but there was nothing that I could do. I saw them lift +Cousin Willie into a closed black wagon that stood at +the street door with quite a little crowd of people +gathered about it already, all excited and leering as if +it were a show. And then they drove away with him and I +came in and went upstairs and sat down in Uncle's room +but I could not work any more. A little later on Mr. +Peters came to the house,--I don't know why, because it +was not for the ice as he had his other clothes on,--and +he came upstairs and sat down and told me about what had +happened. It seemed a strange thing to receive him upstairs +in Uncle's bedroom like that, but I was so upset that I +did not think about it at the time. Mr. Peters had been +on our street with his ice wagon when the police came, +though I did not see him. But he saw me, he said, standing +at the door. And I think he must have gone home and +changed his things and come back again, but I did not +ask him. + +He told me that Cousin Willie had stabbed a man, or at +least a boy, that was in charge of a jewelry shop, and +that the boy might die. Cousin Willie, Mr. Peters says, +has been stealing jewelry nearly ever since we came here +and the police have been watching him but he did not know +this and so he had grown quite foolhardy, and this morning +in broad daylight he went into some sort of jewelry or +pawn shop where there was only a boy watching the shop, +and the boy was a cripple. Cousin Willie had planned to +hide the things under his coat and to sneak out but the +boy saw what he was doing and cried out, and when Cousin +Willie tried to break out of the shop he hobbled to the +door and threw himself in the way. And then it was that +Cousin Willie stabbed him with his sheath-knife,--the +one that I had seen in his room,--and ran. But already +there was a great outcry and the people followed on his +tracks and shouted to the police, and so they easily ran +him down. + +All of this Mr. Peters told me, but he couldn't stay very +long and had to go again. He says he is going to see what +can be done for Cousin Willie but I am afraid that he +doesn't feel very sorry for him; but after Mr. Peters +had gone I could not help going on thinking about it all +and it seemed to me as if Cousin Willie had not altogether +had a fair chance in life. Common people are brought up +in fear of prison and punishment and they learn to do +what they should. But Cousin Willie was brought up as a +prince and was above imprisonment and things like that. +And in any case he seemed, when the big men seized hold +of him, such a paltry and miserable thing. + +Later on in the day Uncle William came home and I had to +tell him all about Cousin Willie. I had feared that he +would be dreadfully upset, but he was much less disturbed +than I had thought. Indeed it is quite wonderful the way +in which Uncle can detach his mind from things. + +I told him that Mr. Peters had said that Cousin Willie +must go to Sing-Sing, and Uncle said, "Ha! a fortress?" +So I told him that I thought it was. After that he asked +if Cousin Willie was in his uniform at the time, and when +I said that he was not, Uncle said "That may make it more +difficult." Of course Cousin Willie has no uniform here +in America and doesn't wear any, but I notice that Uncle +William begins to mix up our old life with our life here +and seems sometimes quite confused and wandering; at +least other people would think him so. He went on talking +quite a long time about what had happened and he said +that there is an almost exact precedent for the "incident" +(that's what he calls it) in the Zabern Case. I don't +remember much about that, as it was years ago, before +the war, but Uncle William said that it was a similar +case of an officer finding himself compelled to pass his +sword once through a cripple (only once, Uncle says) in +order to clear himself a way on the sidewalk. Uncle quoted +a good many other precedents for passing swords through +civilians, but he says that this is the best one. + +In the evening Cousin Ferdinand and Uncle Henry came +over. Uncle Henry seemed very gloomy and depressed about +what had happened and said very little, but Cousin +Ferdinand was very much excited and angry. He said what +is the good of all his honesty and his industry if he is +to be disgraced like this: he asked of what use is his +uprightness and business integrity if he is to have a +first cousin in Sing-Sing. He said that if it was known +that he had a cousin there it would damage him with his +best trade to an incalculable extent. But later on he +quieted down and said that perhaps with a certain part +of his trade it would work the other way. Uncle Ferdinand +has grown to be much interested in what is called here +"advertising,"--a thing that he says all kings ought to +study--and he decided, after he had got over his first +indignation, that Cousin Willie being in Sing-Sing would +be a very good advertisement for him. It might bring him, +he said, quite a lot of new business; especially if it +was known that he refused to help Cousin Willie in any +way or to have anything more to do with any of the rest +of us, and not to give us any money. He said that this +was a point of view which people could respect and admire. + +So before he went home he said that we must not expect +to see or hear from him any more, unless, of course, +things should in some way brighten up, in which case he +would come back. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +It is a long time--nearly three months--since I have +added anything to my memoirs. The truth is I find it very +hard to write memoirs here. For one thing nobody else +seems to do it. Mrs. O'Halloran tells me that she never +thinks of writing memoirs at all. At the Potsdam palace +it was different. We all wrote memoirs. Eugenia of Pless +did, and Cecilia did, and I did, and all of us. We all +had our memoir books with little silver padlocks and +keys. We were brought up to do it because it helped us +to realise how important everything was that we did +and how important all the people about us were. It was +wonderful to realise that in the old life one met every +day great world figures like Prince Rasselwitz-Windischkopf, +the Grand Falconer of Reuss, and the Grand Duke of +Schlitzin-Mein, and Field Marshall Topoff, General-in-Chief +of the army of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. There are no such +figures as these in America. + +But another reason for not writing has been that things +have been going so badly with us. Uncle William still +has no work and he seems to be getting older and more +broken and stranger in his talk every day. He is very +shabby now in spite of all I can do with my needle, but +he becomes more grandiloquent and consequential all the +time. Some of the mean looking young men at this boarding +house have christened him "The Emperor"--which seems a +strange thing for them to have picked upon, and they draw +him out in his talk, and when they meet him they make +mock salutes to him which Uncle returns with very great +dignity. Quite a lot of the people on the nearby streets +have taken it up and when they see Uncle come along they +make him military salutes. Uncle gets quite pleased and +flushed as he goes along the street and answers the +salutes with a sort of military bow. + +He is quite happy when he is out of doors explaining to +me with his stick the plans he has for rebuilding New +York and turning the Hudson River to make it run the +other way. But when he comes in he falls into the most +dreadful depression and sometimes at night I hear him +walking up and down in his room far into the night. Two +or three times he has had the same dreadful kind of +seizures that he had on board the ship when we came over, +and this is always when there is a great wind blowing +from the ocean and a storm raging out at sea. + +Of course as Uncle has not any work or any position, we +are getting poorer and poorer. Cousin Willie has been +sent to the fortress at Sing-Sing and Cousin Ferdinand +of Bulgaria refuses to know us any more, though, from +what we hear, he is getting on wonderfully well in the +clothing business and is very soon to open a big new +store of which he is to be the general manager. Cousin +Karl is now the Third Assistant Head-Waiter at the King +George Hotel, and in the sphere in which he moves it is +impossible for him to acknowledge any relationship with +us. I don't know what we should do but that Uncle Henry +manages to give us enough of his wages to pay for our +board and lodging. Uncle Henry has passed his Naval +Examination and is now appointed to a quite high command. +It is called a Barge Master. They refused to accept his +certificate of a German Admiral, so he had to study very +hard, but at last he got his qualification and is now in +charge of long voyages on the canals. + +I am very glad that Uncle Henry's command turned out to +be on canals instead of on the high seas, as it makes it +so much more German. Of course Uncle Henry had splendid +experience in the Kiel Canal all through the four years +of the war, and it is bound to come in. So he goes away +now on quite long voyages, often of two or three weeks +at a time, and for all this time he is in chief charge +of his barge and has to work out all the navigation. +Sometimes Uncle Henry takes bricks and sometimes sand. +He says it is a great responsibility to feel oneself +answerable for the safety of a whole barge-full of bricks +or sand. It is quite different from what he did in the +German navy, because there it was only a question of the +sailors and for most of the time, as I have heard Uncle +William and Uncle Henry say, we had plenty of them, but +here with bricks and sand it is different. Uncle Henry +says that if his barge was wrecked he would lose his job. +This makes it a very different thing from being a royal +admiral. + +But Uncle William all through the last three months has +failed first at one thing and then at another. After all +his plans for selling pictures had come to nothing he +decided, very reluctantly that he would go into business. +He only reached this decision after a great deal of +anxious thought because, of course, business is a +degradation. It involves taking money for doing things +and this, Uncle William says, no prince can consent to +do. But at last, after deep thought, Uncle said, "The +die is cast," and sat down and wrote a letter offering +to take over the presidency of the United States Steel +Corporation. We spent two or three anxious days waiting +for the answer. Uncle was very firm and kept repeating, +"I have set my hand to it, and I will do it," but I was +certain that he was sorry about it and it was a great +relief when the answer came at last--it took days and +days, evidently, for them to decide about it--in which +the corporation said that they would "worry along" as +they were. Uncle explained to me what "worrying along" +meant and he said that he admired their spirit. But that +ended all talk of his going into business and I am sure +that we were both glad. + +After that Uncle William decided that it was necessary +for me to marry in a way to restore our fortunes and he +decided to offer me to a State Governor. He asked me if +I had any choice of States, and I said no. Of course I +should not have wished to marry a state governor, but I +knew my duty towards Uncle William and I said nothing. +So Uncle got a map of the United States and he decided +to marry me to the Governor of Texas. He told me that I +could have two weeks to arrange my supply of household +linen and my trousseau to take to Texas, and he wrote at +once to the Governor. He showed me what he wrote and it +was a very formal letter. I think that Uncle's mind gets +more and more confused as to where he is and what he is +and he wrote in quite the old strain and I noticed that +he signed himself, "Your brother, William." Perhaps it +was on that account that we had no answer to the letter. +Uncle seemed to forget all about it very soon and I was +glad that it was so, and that I had escaped going to the +court of Texas. + +All this time Mr. Peters has been very kind. He comes +to the house with his ice every day and sometimes when +Uncle Henry is here he comes in with him and smokes in +the evenings. One day he brought a beautiful bunch of +chrysanthemums for Uncle William, and another day a lovely +nosegay of violets for Uncle Henry. And one Sunday he +took us out for a beautiful drive with one of his ice-horses +in a carriage called a buggy, with three seats. Uncle +William sat with Mr. Peters in the front seat, and Uncle +Henry and Cousin Ferdinand (it was the last time he came +to see us) sat behind them and there was a little seat +at the back in which I sat. It was a lovely drive and +Uncle William pointed out to Mr. Peters all the things +of interest, and Cousin Ferdinand smoked big cigars and +told Uncle Henry all about the clothing trade, and I +listened to them all and enjoyed it very much indeed. +But I was afraid afterwards that it was a very bold and +unconventional thing to do, and perhaps Mr. Peters felt +that he had asked too much because he did not invite me +to drive again. + +But he is always very kind and thoughtful. + +One Sunday afternoon he came to see us, thinking by +mistake that Uncle William and Uncle Henry were there, +but they weren't, and his manner seemed so strange and +constrained that I was certain that there was something +that he was trying to say and it made me dreadfully +nervous and confused. And at last quite suddenly he said +that there was something that he wanted to ask me if I +wouldn't think it a liberty. My breath stopped and I +couldn't speak, and then he went on to ask if he might +lend us twenty-five dollars. He got very red in the face +when he said it and he began counting out the money on +the sofa, and somehow I hadn't expected that it was money +and began to cry. But I told Mr. Peters that of course +we couldn't think of taking any money, and I begged him +to pick it up again and then I began to try to tell him +about how hard it was to get along and to ask him to get +work for Uncle William, but I started to cry again. Mr. +Peters came over to my chair and took hold of the arm of +it and told me not to cry. Somehow his touch on the arm +of the chair thrilled all through me and though I knew +that it was wrong I let him keep it there and even let +him stroke the upholstery and I don't know just what +would have happened but at that very minute Uncle William +came in. He was most courteous to Mr. Peters and expressed +his apologies for having been out and said that it must +have been extremely depressing for Mr. Peters to find +that he was not at home, and he thanked him for putting +himself to the inconvenience of waiting. And a little +while after that Mr. Peters left. + + +The Next Day + +Mr. Peters came back this morning and said that he had +got work for Uncle William. So I was delighted. He said +that Uncle will make a first class "street man," and that +he has arranged for a line of goods for him and that he +has a "territory" that Uncle can occupy. He showed me a +flat cardboard box filled with lead pencils and shoe-strings +and little badges and buttons with inscriptions on them, +and he says these are what is called a "line," and that +Uncle can take out this line and do splendidly. I don't +quite understand yet who makes the appointment to be a +street man or what influence it takes or what it means +to have a territory, but Mr. Peters explained that there +is a man who is retiring from being a street man and that +Uncle can take his place and can have both sides of the +Bowery, which sounds very pretty indeed. + +At first I didn't understand--because Mr. Peters hesitated +a good deal in telling me about it--that if Uncle gets +this appointment, it will mean that he will sell things +in the street. But as soon as I understood this I felt +that Uncle William would scorn to do anything like this, +as the degradation would be the same as being President +of the Steel Corporation. So I was much surprised to find +that when Uncle came in he didn't look at it that way at +all. He looked at the box of badges and buttons and +things, and he said at once, "Ha! Orders of Distinction! +An excellent idea." He picked up a silly little white +button with the motto "Welcome to New York," and he said +"Admirable! That shall be the first class." And there +was a little lead spoon with "Souvenir of the Bowery" +that he made the second class. He started arranging and +rearranging all the things in the box, just as he used +to arrange the orders and decorations at the Palace. Only +those were REAL things such as the Order of the Red +Feather, and The Insignia of the Black Duck, and these +were only poor tin baubles. But I could see that Uncle +no longer knows the difference, and as his fingers fumbled +among these silly things he was quite trembling and eager +to begin, like a child waiting for to-morrow. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +It is a year or nearly a year since I wrote in my memoirs, +and I only add to them now because things have happened +which mean that I shall never write any more. + +Mr. Peters and I were married last autumn. He asked me +if I would marry him the day that he held the arm of my +chair in the boarding house where we used to live. At +first I never thought that Uncle William would permit +it, because of the hopeless difference of birth. But it +turned out that there was no difficulty at all. Uncle's +mind was always so wonderful that he could find a way +out of anything provided that he wanted to. So he conferred +on Mr. Peters an Order that raised him right up in birth +so that he came level with me. Uncle said that he could +have lifted him higher still if need be but that as I +was only, in our old life, of a younger branch of the +family, it was not necessary to lift Mr. Peters to the +very top. He takes precedence, Uncle said, just below +Uncle Henry of Prussia and just above an Archbishop. + +It is so pleasant to think--now that poor Uncle William +is gone--that my marriage was with his full consent. + +But even after Uncle William had given his formal consent, +I didn't want to get married till I could leave him +safely. Only he got along so well in his "territory" of +the Bowery from the very start that he was soon quite +all right. He used to go out every morning with his +trayful of badges and pencils and shoe-strings and he +was a success at once. All the people got to know him by +sight and they would say when they saw him, "Here comes +the Emperor," or "Here comes Old Dutch," and very often +there would be quite a little crowd round him buying his +things. Uncle regarded himself always as conferring a +great dignity on any one that he sold a badge to, but he +was very capricious and he had certain buttons and badges +that he would only part with as a very special favour +and honour. Uncle got on so fast that presently Cousin +Ferdinand decided that it would be all right to know him +again and so he came over and made a reconciliation and +took away Uncle's money,--it was all in small coins,--in +a bag to invest for him. + +So when everything was all right with Uncle William, Mr. +Peters and I were married and it was on our wedding +morning that Uncle conferred the Order on my husband +which made me very proud. That was a year ago, and since +then we have lived in a very fine place of our own with +four rooms, all to ourselves, and a gallery at the back. +I have cooked all the meals and done all the work of our +apartment, except just at the time when our little boy +was born. We both think he is a very wonderful child. At +first I wanted to call him after the Hohenzollerns and +to name him William Frederick Charles Mary Augustus +Francis Felix, but somehow it seemed out of place and so +we have called him simply Joe Peters. I think it sounds +better. Uncle William drew up an act of abnegation of +Joe, whereby he gives up all claim to a reversion of the +throne of Prussia, Brunswick and Waldeck. I was sorry +for this at first but Uncle said that all the Hohenzollerns +had done it and had made just as great a sacrifice as +Joe has in doing it. But my husband says that under the +constitution of the United States, Joe can be President, +which I think I will like better. + +It was one day last week that Uncle William met with the +accident that caused his death. He had walked far away +from his "territory" up to where the Great Park is, +because in this lovely spring weather he liked to wander +about. And he came to where there was a great crowd of +people gathered to see the unveiling of a new monument. +It is called the Lusitania Monument and it is put up in +memory of the people that were lost when one of our war +boats fought the English cruiser Lusitania. There were +a lot of soldiers lining the streets and regiments of +cavalry riding between. And it seems that when Uncle +William saw the crowd and the soldiers he was drawn nearer +and nearer by a sort of curiosity, and when he saw the +great white veil drawn away from the monument, and read +the word "Lusitania" that is carved in large letters +across the base, he screamed out in a sudden fear, and +clashed among the horses of the cavalry and was ridden +down. + +They carried him to the hospital, but he never spoke +again, and died on the next day but one. My husband would +not let me go to see him, as he was not conscious and it +could do no good, but after Uncle William was dead they +let me see him in his coffin. + +Lying there he seemed such a pitiful and ghastly lump of +clay that it seemed strange that he could, in his old +life, have vexed the world as he did. + +I had thought that when Uncle William died there would +have been long accounts of him in the papers; at least +I couldn't help thinking so, by a sort of confusion of +mind, as it is hard to get used to things as they are +and to remember that our other life is unknown here and +that we are known only as ourselves. + +But though I looked in all the papers I could find nothing +except one little notice, which I cut out of an evening +paper and which I put in here as a conclusion to my +memoirs. + + + THE "EMPEROR" DEAD + + Unique Character of the East Side Passes Away + + A unique and interesting character, a familiar figure + of the East Side of the City, has been lost from our + streets with the death of William Hohen lost Thursday + in the Pauper Hospital, to which he had been brought + as the result of injuries sustained in a street accident + at the Lusitania celebration. Hohen, who was about + sixty-five years of age, was an immigrant out of + Germany after the troubles of the Great War. He had + been for a year or more a street pedler on the Bowery, + where he sold souvenir buttons and various little + trinkets. The old man appears to have been the victim + of a harmless hallucination whereby he thought himself + a person of Royal distinction and in his fancy converted + the box of wares that he carried into Orders of Chivalry + and decorations of Knighthood. The effect of this + strange fancy was heightened by an attempt at military + bearing which, comic though it was in so old and ragged + a figure, was not without a touch of pathos. Some + fancied resemblance to the former Kaiser had earned + for Hohen the designation of the "Emperor," of which + he appeared inordinately proud. But those who knew + Hohen by sight assure us that the resemblance to the + former ruler of Germany, who with all his faults made + a splendid and imposing appearance, was of a purely + superficial character. It would, alas! have been well + for the world if the lot of William Hohenzollern had + fallen on the lines of the simple and pathetic "Emperor" + of the Bowery. + + + + +II.--With the Bolsheviks in Berlin + +Two years ago as my readers will remember,--but of course +they don't,--I made a secret visit to Germany during the +height of the war. It was obviously quite impossible at +that time to disclose the means whereby I made my way +across the frontier. I therefore adopted the familiar +literary device of professing to have been transported +to Germany in a dream. In that state I was supposed to +be conducted about the country by my friend Count Boob +von Boobenstein, whom I had known years before as a waiter +in Toronto, to see GERMANY FROM WITHIN, and to report +upon it in the Allied press. + +What I wrote attracted some attention. So the German +Government--feeling, perhaps, that the prestige of their +own spy system was at stake--published a white paper, +--or a green paper,--I forget which,--in denial of all +my adventures and disclosures. In this they proved (1) +that all entry into Germany by dreams had been expressly +forbidden of the High General Command; (2) that astral +bodies were prohibited and (3) that nobody else but the +Kaiser was allowed to have visions. They claimed therefore +(1) that my article was a fabrication and (2) that for +all they knew it was humorous. There the matter ended +until it can be taken up at the General Peace Table. + +But as soon as I heard that the People's Revolution had +taken place in Berlin I determined to make a second visit. + +This time I had no difficulty about the frontier whatever. +I simply put on the costume of a British admiral and +walked in. + +"Three Cheers for the British Navy!" said the first +official whom I met. He threw his hat in the air and the +peasants standing about raised a cheer. It was my first +view of the marvellous adaptability of this great people. +I noticed that many of them were wearing little buttons +with pictures of Jellicoe and Beatty. + +At my own request I was conducted at once to the nearest +railway station. + +"So your Excellency wishes to go to Berlin?" said the +stationmaster. + +"Yes," I replied, "I want to see something of the people's +revolution." + +The stationmaster looked at his watch. + +"That Revolution is over," he said. + +"Too bad!" I exclaimed. + +"Not at all. A much better one is in progress, quite the +best Revolution that we have had. It is called--Johann, +hand me that proclamation of yesterday--the Workmen and +Soldiers Revolution." + +"What's it about?" I asked. + +"The basis of it," said the stationmaster, "or what we +Germans call the Fundamental Ground Foundation, is +universal love. They hanged all the leaders of the Old +Revolution yesterday." + +"When can I get a train?" I inquired. + +"Your Excellency shall have a special train at once, +Sir," he continued with a sudden burst of feeling, while +a tear swelled in his eye. "The sight of your uniform +calls forth all our gratitude. My three sons enlisted in +our German Navy. For four years they have been at Kiel, +comfortably fed, playing dominos. They are now at home +all safe and happy. Had your brave navy relaxed its +vigilance for a moment those boys might have had to go +out on the sea, a thing they had never done. Please God," +concluded the good old man, removing his hat a moment, +"no German sailor now will ever have to go to sea." + +I pass over my journey to Berlin. Interesting and varied +as were the scenes through which I passed they gave me +but little light upon the true situation of the country: +indeed I may say without exaggeration that they gave me +as little--or even more so--as the press reports of our +talented newspaper correspondents. The food situation +seemed particularly perplexing. A well-to-do merchant +from Bremen who travelled for some distance in my train +assured me that there was plenty of food in Germany, +except of course for the poor. Distress, he said, was +confined entirely to these. Similarly a Prussian gentleman +who looked very like a soldier, but who assured me with +some heat that he was a commercial traveller, told me +the same thing: There were no cases of starvation, he +said, except among the very poor. + +The aspect of the people too, at the stations and in the +towns we passed, puzzled me. There were no uniforms, no +soldiers. But I was amazed at the number of commercial +travellers, Lutheran ministers, photographers, and so +forth, and the odd resemblance they presented, in spite +of their innocent costumes, to the arrogant and ubiquitous +military officers whom I had observed on my former visit. + +But I was too anxious to reach Berlin to pay much attention +to the details of my journey. + +Even when I at last reached the capital, I arrived as I +had feared, too late. + +"Your Excellency," said a courteous official at the +railway station, to whom my naval uniform acted as a +sufficient passport. "The Revolution of which you speak +is over. Its leaders were arrested yesterday. But you +shall not be disappointed. There is a better one. It is +called the Comrades' Revolution of the Bolsheviks. The +chief Executive was installed yesterday." + +"Would it be possible for me to see him?" I asked. + +"Nothing simpler, Excellency," he continued as a tear +rose in his eye. "My four sons,--" + +"I know," I said; "your four sons are in the German Navy. +It is enough. Can you take me to the Leader?" + +"I can and will," said the official. "He is sitting now +in the Free Palace of all the German People, once usurped +by the Hohenzollern Tyrant. The doors are guarded by +machine guns. But I can take you direct from here through +a back way. Come." + +We passed out from the station, across a street and +through a maze of little stairways, and passages into +the heart of the great building that had been the offices +of the Imperial Government. + +"Enter this room. Do not knock," said my guide. "Good bye." + +In another moment I found myself face to face with the +chief comrade of the Bolsheviks. + +He gave a sudden start as he looked at me, but instantly +collected himself. + +He was sitting with his big boots up on the mahogany +desk, a cigar at an edgeways angle in his mouth. His hair +under his sheepskin cap was shaggy, and his beard stubbly +and unshaven. His dress was slovenly and there was a big +knife in his belt. A revolver lay on the desk beside him. +I had never seen a Bolshevik before but I knew at sight +that he must be one. + +"You say you were here in Berlin once before?" he +questioned, and he added before I had time to answer: +"When you speak don't call me 'Excellency' or 'Sereneness' +or anything of that sort; just call me 'brother' or +'comrade.' This is the era of freedom. You're as good as +I am, or nearly." + +"Thank you," I said. + +"Don't be so damn polite," he snarled. "No good comrade +ever says 'thank you.' So you were here in Berlin before?" + +"Yes," I answered, "I was here writing up Germany from +Within in the middle of the war." + +"The war, the war!" he murmured, in a sort of wail or +whine. "Take notice, comrade, that I weep when I speak +of it. If you write anything about me be sure to say that +I cried when the war was mentioned. We Germans have been +so misjudged. When I think of the devastation of France +and Belgium I weep." + +He drew a greasy, red handkerchief from his pocket and +began to sob. "To think of the loss of all those English +merchant ships!" + +"Oh, you needn't worry," I said, "it's all going to be +paid for." + +"Oh I hope so, I do hope so," said the Bolshevik chief. +"What a regret it is to us Germans to think that +unfortunately we are not able to help pay for it; but +you English--you are so generous--how much we have admired +your noble hearts--so kind, so generous to the +vanquished..." + +His voice had subsided into a sort of whine. + +But at this moment there was a loud knocking at the door. +The Bolshevik hastily wiped the tears from his face and +put away his handkerchief. + +"How do I look?" he asked anxiously. "Not humane, I hope? +Not soft?" + +"Oh, no," I said, "quite tough." + +"That's good," he answered. "That's good. But am I tough +ENOUGH?" + +He hastily shoved his hands through his hair. + +"Quick," he said, "hand me that piece of chewing tobacco. +Now then. Come in!" + +The door swung open. + +A man in a costume much like the leader's swaggered into +the room. He had a bundle of papers in his hands, and +seemed to be some sort of military secretary. + +"Ha! comrade!" he said, with easy familiarity. "Here are +the death warrants!" + +"Death warrants!" said the Bolshevik. "Of the leaders of +the late Revolution? Excellent! And a good bundle of +them! One moment while I sign them." + +He began rapidly signing the warrants, one after the +other. + +"Comrade," said the secretary in a surly tone, "you are +not chewing tobacco!" + +"Yes I am, yes I am," said the leader, "or, at least, I +was just going to." + +He bit a huge piece out of his plug, with what seemed to +me an evident distaste, and began to chew furiously. + +"It is well," said the other. "Remember comrade, that +you are watched. It was reported last night to the +Executive Committee of the Circle of the Brothers that +you chewed no tobacco all day yesterday. Be warned, +comrade. This is a free and independent republic. We will +stand for no aristocratic nonsense. But whom have you +here?" he added, breaking off in his speech, as if he +noticed me for the first time. "What dog is this?" + +"Hush," said the leader, "he is a representative of the +foreign press, a newspaper reporter." + +"Your pardon," said the secretary. "I took you by your +dress for a prince. A representative of the great and +enlightened press of the Allies, I presume. How deeply +we admire in Germany the press of England! Let me kiss +you." + +"Oh, don't trouble," I said, "it's not worth while." + +"Say, at least, when you write to your paper, that I +offered to kiss you, will you not?" + +Meantime, the leader had finished signing the papers. +The secretary took them and swung on his heels with +something between a military bow and a drunken swagger. +"Remember, comrade," he said in a threatening tone as he +passed out, "you are watched." + +The Bolshevik leader looked after him with something of +a shudder. + +"Excuse me a moment," he said, "while I go and get rid +of this tobacco." + +He got up from his chair and walked away towards the door +of an inner room. As he did so, there struck me something +strangely familiar in his gait and figure. Conceal it as +he might, there was still the stiff wooden movement of +a Prussian general beneath his assumed swagger. The poise +of his head still seemed to suggest the pointed helmet +of the Prussian. I could without effort imagine a military +cloak about his shoulders instead of his Bolshevik +sheepskin. + +Then, all in a moment, as he re-entered the room, I +recalled exactly who he was. + +"My friend," I said, reaching out my hand, "pardon me +for not knowing you at once. I recognize you now..." + +"Hush," said the Bolshevik. "Don't speak! I never saw +you in my life." + +"Nonsense," I said, "I knew you years ago in Canada when +you were disguised as a waiter. And you it was who +conducted me through Germany two years ago when I made +my war visit. You are no more a Bolshevik than I am. You +are General Count Boob von Boobenstein." + +The general sank down in his chair, his face pale beneath +its plaster of rouge. + +"Hush!" he said. "If they learn it, it is death." + +"My dear Boob," I said, "not a word shall pass my lips." + +The general grasped my hand. "The true spirit," he said, +"the true English comradeship; how deeply we admire it +in Germany!" + +"I am sure you do," I answered. "But tell me, what is +the meaning of all this? Why are you a Bolshevik?" + +"We all are," said the count, dropping his assumed rough +voice, and speaking in a tone of quiet melancholy. "It's +the only thing to be. But come," he added, getting up +from his chair, "I took you once through Berlin in war +time. Let me take you out again and show you Berlin under +the Bolsheviks." + +"I shall be only too happy," I said. + +"I shall leave my pistols and knives here," said +Boobenstein, "and if you will excuse me I shall change +my costume a little. To appear as I am would excite too +much enthusiasm. I shall walk out with you in the simple +costume of a gentleman. It's a risky thing to do in +Berlin, but I'll chance it." + +The count retired, and presently returned dressed in the +quiet bell-shaped purple coat, the simple scarlet tie, +the pea-green hat and the white spats that mark the German +gentleman all the world over. + +"Bless me, Count," I said, "you look just like Bernstorff." + +"Hush," said the count. "Don't mention him. He's here in +Berlin." + +"What's he doing?" I asked. + +"He's a Bolshevik; one of our leaders; he's just been +elected president of the Scavengers Union. They say he's +the very man for it. But come along, and, by the way, +when we get into the street talk English and only English. +There's getting to be a prejudice here against German." + +We passed out of the door and through the spacious +corridors and down the stairways of the great building. +All about were little groups of ferocious looking men, +dressed like stage Russians, all chewing tobacco and +redolent of alcohol. + +"Who are all these people?" I said to the count in a low +voice. + +"Bolsheviks," he whispered. "At least they aren't really. +You see that group in the corner? + +"The ones with the long knives," I said. + +"Yes. They are, or at least they were, the orchestra of +the Berlin Opera. They are now the Bolshevik Music +Commission. They are here this morning to see about +getting their second violinist hanged." + +"Why not the first?" I asked. + +"They had him hanged yesterday. Both cases are quite +clear. The men undoubtedly favoured the war: one, at +least, of them openly spoke in disparagement of President +Wilson. But come along. Let me show you our new city." + +We stepped out upon the great square which faced the +building. How completely it was changed from the Berlin +that I had known! My attention was at once arrested by +the new and glaring signboards at the shops and hotels, +and the streamers with mottos suspended across the streets. +I realised as I read them the marvellous adaptability of +the German people and their magnanimity towards their +enemies. Conspicuous in huge lettering was HOTEL PRESIDENT +WILSON, and close beside it CABARET QUEEN MARY: ENGLISH +DANCING. The square itself, which I remembered as the +Kaiserplatz, was now renamed on huge signboards GRAND +SQUARE OF THE BRITISH NAVY. Not far off one noticed the +RESTAURANT MARSHAL FOCH, side by side with the ROOSEVELT +SALOON and the BEER GARDEN GEORGE V. + +But the change in the appearance and costume of the men +who crowded the streets was even more notable. The uniforms +and the pointed helmets of two years ago had vanished +utterly. The men that one saw retained indeed their German +stoutness, their flabby faces, and their big spectacles. +But they were now dressed for the most part in the costume +of the Russian Monjik, while some of them appeared in +American wideawakes and Kentucky frock coats, or in +English stove-pipe hats and morning coats. A few of the +stouter were in Highland costume. + +"You are amazed," said Boobenstein as we stood a moment +looking at the motley crowd. "What does it mean?" I +asked. + +"One moment," said the count. "I will first summon a +taxi. It will be more convenient to talk as we ride." + +He whistled and there presently came lumbering to our +side an ancient and decrepit vehicle which would have +excited my laughter but for the seriousness of the count's +face. The top of the conveyance had evidently long since +been torn off leaving, only the frame: the copper fastenings +had been removed: the tires were gone: the doors were +altogether missing. + +"Our new 1919 model," said the count. "Observe the +absence of the old-fashioned rubber tires, still used by +the less progressive peoples. Our chemists found that +riding on rubber was bad for the eye-sight. Note, too, +the time saved by not having any doors." + +"Admirable," I said. + +We seated ourselves in the crazy conveyance, the count +whispered to the chauffeur an address which my ear failed +to catch and we started off at a lumbering pace along +the street. + +"And now tell me, Boobenstein," I said, "what does it +all mean, the foreign signs and the strange costumes?" + +"My dear sir" he replied, "it is merely a further proof +of our German adaptability. Having failed to conquer the +world by war we now propose to conquer it by the arts of +peace: Those people, for example, that you see in Scotch +costumes are members of our Highland Mission about to +start for Scotland to carry to the Scotch the good news +that the war is a thing of the past, that the German +people forgive all wrongs and are prepared to offer a +line of manufactured goods as per catalogue sample." + +"Wonderful," I said. + +"Is it not?" said Von Boobenstein. "We call it the From +Germany Out movement. It is being organised in great +detail by our Step from Under Committee. They claim that +already four million German voters are pledged to forget +the war and to forgive the Allies. All that we now ask +is to be able to put our hands upon the villains who made +this war, no matter how humble their station may be, and +execute them after a fair trial or possibly before." + +The count spoke with great sincerity and earnestness. +"But come along," he added. "I want to drive you about +the city and show you a few of the leading features of +our new national reconstruction. We can talk as we go." + +"But Von Boobenstein," I said, "you speak of the people +who made the war; surely you were all in favour of it?" + +"In favour of it! We were all against it." + +"But the Kaiser," I protested. + +"The Kaiser, my poor master! How he worked to prevent +the war! Day and night; even before anybody else had +heard of it. 'Boob,' he said to me one day with tears in +his eyes, 'this war must be stopped.' 'Which war, your +Serenity,' I asked. 'The war that is coming next month,' +he answered, 'I look to you, Count Boobenstein,' he +continued, 'to bear witness that I am doing my utmost to +stop it a month before the English Government has heard +of it.'" + +While we were thus speaking our taxi had taken us out of +the roar and hubbub of the main thoroughfare into the +quiet of a side street. It now drew up at the door of an +unpretentious dwelling in the window of which I observed +a large printed card with the legend + + REVEREND MR. TIBBITS + Private Tuition, English, Navigation, + and other Branches + +We entered and were shown by a servant into a little +front room where a venerable looking gentleman, evidently +a Lutheran minister, was seated in a corner at a writing +table. He turned on our entering and at the sight of the +uniform which I wore jumped to his feet with a vigorous +and unexpected oath. + +"It is all right, Admiral," said Count Von Boobenstein. +"My friend is not really a sailor." + +"Ah!" said the other. "You must excuse me. The sight of +that uniform always gives me the jumps." + +He came forward to shake hands and as the light fell upon +him I recognized the grand old seaman, perhaps the greatest +sailor that Germany has ever produced or ever will, +Admiral Von Tirpitz. + +"My dear Admiral!" I said, warmly. "I thought you were +out of the country. Our papers said that you had gone to +Switzerland for a rest." + +"No," said the Admiral. "I regret to say that I find it +impossible to get away." + +"Your Allied press," interjected the count, "has greatly +maligned our German patriots by reporting that they have +left the country. Where better could they trust themselves +than in the bosom of their own people? You noticed the +cabman of our taxi? He was the former chancellor Von +Hertling. You saw that stout woman with the apple cart +at the street corner? Frau Bertha Krupp Von Bohlen. All +are here, helping to make the new Germany. But come, +Admiral, our visitor here is much interested in our plans +for the restoration of the Fatherland. I thought that +you might care to show him your designs for the new German +Navy." + +"A new navy!" I exclaimed, while my voice showed the +astonishment and admiration that I felt. Here was this +gallant old seaman, having just lost an entire navy, +setting vigorously to work to make another. "But how can +Germany possibly find the money in her present state for +the building of new ships?" + +"There are not going to be any ships," said the great +admiral. "That was our chief mistake in the past in +insisting on having ships in the navy. Ships, as the war +has shown us, are quite unnecessary to the German plan; +they are not part of what I may call the German idea. +The new navy will be built inland and elevated on piles +and will consist--" + +But at this moment a great noise of shouting and sudden +tumult could be heard as if from the street. + +"Some one is coming," said the admiral hastily. "Reach +me my Bible." + +"No, no," said the count, seizing me by the arm. "The +sound comes from the Great Square. There is trouble. We +must hasten back at once." + +He dragged me from the house. + +We perceived at once, as soon as we came into the main +street again, from the excited demeanour of the crowd +and from the anxious faces of people running to and fro +that something of great moment must be happening. + +Everybody was asking of the passer-by, "What is loose? +What is it?" Ramshack taxis, similar to the one in which +we had driven, forced their way as best they could through +the crowded thoroughfare, moving evidently in the direction +of the government buildings. + +"Hurry, hurry!" said Von Boobenstein, clutching me by +the arm, "or we shall be too late. It is as I feared." + +"What is it?" I said; "what's the matter?" + +"Fool that I was," said the count, "to leave the building. +I should have known. And in this costume I am helpless." + +We made our way as best we could through the crowd of +people, who all seemed moving in the same direction, the +count, evidently a prey to the gravest anxiety, talking +as if to himself and imprecating his own carelessness. + +We turned the corner of a street and reached the edge of +the great square. It was filled with a vast concourse of +people. At the very moment in which we reached it a great +burst of cheering rose from the crowd. We could see over +the heads of the people that a man had appeared on the +balcony of the Government Building, holding a paper in +his hand. His appearance was evidently a signal for the +outburst of cheers, accompanied by the waving of +handkerchiefs. The man raised his hand in a gesture of +authority. German training is deep. Silence fell instantly +upon the assembled populace. We had time in the momentary +pause to examine, as closely as the distance permitted, +the figure upon the balcony. The man was dressed in the +blue overall suit of a workingman. He was bare-headed. +His features, so far as we could tell, were those of a +man well up in years, but his frame was rugged and +powerful. Then he began to speak. + +"Friends and comrades!" he called out in a great voice +that resounded through the square. "I have to announce +that a New Revolution has been completed." + +A wild cheer woke from the people. + +"The Bolsheviks' Republic is overthrown. The Bolsheviks +are aristocrats. Let them die." + +"Thank Heaven for this costume!" I heard Count Boobenstein +murmur at my side. Then he seized his pea-green hat and +waved it in the air, shouting: "Down with the Bolsheviks!" + +All about us the cry was taken up. + +One saw everywhere in the crowd men pulling off their +sheepskin coats and tramping them under foot with the +shout, "Down with Bolshevism!" To my surprise I observed +that most of the men had on blue overalls beneath their +Russian costumes. In a few moments the crowd seemed +transformed into a vast mass of mechanics. + +The speaker raised his hand again. "We have not yet +decided what the new Government will be"-- + +A great cheer from the people. + +"Nor do we propose to state who will be the leaders of it." + +Renewed cheers. + +"But this much we can say. It is to be a free, universal, +Pan-German Government of love." + +Cheers. + +"Meantime, be warned. Whoever speaks against it will be +shot: anybody who dares to lift a finger will be hanged. +A proclamation of Brotherhood will be posted all over +the city. If anybody dares to touch it, or to discuss +it, or to look at or to be seen reading it, he will be +hanged to a lamp post." + +Loud applause greeted this part of the speech while the +faces of the people, to my great astonishment, seemed +filled with genuine relief and beamed with unmistakable +enthusiasm. + +"And now," continued the speaker, "I command you, you +dogs, to disperse quietly and go home. Move quickly, +swine that you are, or we shall open fire upon you with +machine guns." + +With a last outburst of cheering the crowd broke and +dispersed, like a vast theatre audience. On all sides +were expressions of joy and satisfaction. "Excellent, +wunderschoen!" "He calls us dogs! That's splendid. Swine! +Did you hear him say 'Swine'? This is true German Government +again at last." + +Then just for a moment the burly figure reappeared on +the balcony. + +"A last word!" he called to the departing crowd. "I +omitted to say that all but one of the leaders of the +late government are already caught. As soon as we can +lay our thumb on the Chief Executive rest assured that +he will be hanged." + +"Hurrah!" shouted Boobenstein, waving his hat in the air. +Then in a whisper to me: "Let us go," he said, "while +the going is still good." + +We hastened as quickly and unobtrusively as we could +through the dispersing multitude, turned into a side +street, and on a sign from the count entered a small +cabaret or drinking shop, newly named, as its sign showed, +THE GLORY OF THE BRITISH COLONIES CAFE. + +The count with a deep sigh of relief ordered wine. + +"You recognized him, of course?" he said. + +"Who?" I asked. "You mean the big working-man that spoke? +Who is he?" + +"So you didn't recognize him?" said the count. "Well, +well, but of course all the rest did. Workingman! It is +Field Marshal Hindenburg. It means of course that the +same old crowd are back again. That was Ludendorf standing +below. I saw it all at once. Perhaps it is the only way. +But as for me I shall not go back: I am too deeply +compromised: it would be death." + +Boobenstein remained for a time in deep thought, his +fingers beating a tattoo on the little table. Then he +spoke. + +"Do you remember," he said, "the old times of long ago +when you first knew me?" + +"Very well, indeed," I answered. "You were one of the +German waiters, or rather, one of the German officers +disguised as waiters at McConkey's Restaurant in Toronto." + +"I was," said the count. "I carried the beer on a little +tray and opened oysters behind a screen. It was a +wunderschoen life. Do you think, my good friend, you could +get me that job again?" + +"Boobenstein," I exclaimed, "I can get you reinstated at +once. It will be some small return for your kindness to +me in Germany." + +"Good," said the count. "Let us sail at once for Canada." + +"One thing, however," I said. "You may not know that +since you left there are no longer beer waiters in Toronto +because there is no beer. All is forbidden." + +"Let me understand myself," said the count in astonishment. +"No beer!" + +"None whatever." + +"Wine, then?" + +"Absolutely not. All drinking, except of water, is +forbidden." + +The count rose and stood erect. His figure seemed to +regain all its old-time Prussian rigidity. He extended +his hand. + +"My friend," he said. "I bid you farewell." + +"Where are you going to?" I asked. + +"My choice is made," said Von Boobenstein. "There are +worse things than death. I am about to surrender myself +to the German authorities." + + + + +III.--Afternoon Tea with the Sultan + +A Study of Reconstruction in Turkey + +On the very day following the events related in the last +chapter, I was surprised and delighted to receive a +telegram which read "Come on to Constantinople and write +US up too." From the signature I saw that the message +was from my old friend Abdul Aziz the Sultan. + +I had visited him--as of course my readers will instantly +recollect--during the height of the war, and the +circumstances of my departure had been such that I should +have scarcely ventured to repeat my visit without this +express invitation. But on receipt of it, I set out at +once by rail for Constantinople. + +I was delighted to find that under the new order of things +in going from Berlin to Constantinople it was no longer +necessary to travel through the barbarous and brutal +populations of Germany, Austria and Hungary. The way now +runs, though I believe the actual railroad is the same, +through the Thuringian Republic, Czecho-Slovakia and +Magyaria. It was a source of deep satisfaction to see +the scowling and hostile countenances of Germans, Austrians +and Hungarians replaced by the cheerful and honest faces +of the Thuringians, the Czecho-Slovaks and the Magyarians. +Moreover I was assured on all sides that if these faces +are not perfectly satisfactory, they will be altered in +any way required. + +It was very pleasant, too, to find myself once again in +the flagstoned halls of the Yildiz Kiosk, the Sultan's +palace. My little friend Abdul Aziz rose at once from +his cushioned divan under a lemon tree and came shuffling +in his big slippers to meet me, a smile of welcome on +his face. He seemed, to my surprise, radiant with happiness. +The disasters attributed by the allied press to his +unhappy country appeared to sit lightly on the little man. + +"How is everything going in Turkey?" I asked as we sat +down side by side on the cushions. + +"Splendid," said Abdul. "I suppose you've heard that +we're bankrupt?" + +"Bankrupt!" I exclaimed. + +"Yes," continued the Sultan, rubbing his hands together +with positive enjoyment, "we can't pay a cent: isn't it +great? Have some champagne?" + +He clapped his hands together and a turbaned attendant +appeared with wine on a tray which he served into +long-necked glasses. + +"I'd rather have tea," I said. + +"No, no, don't take tea," he protested. "We've practically +cut out afternoon tea here. It's part of our Turkish +thrift movement. We're taking champagne instead. Tell +me, have you a Thrift Movement like that, where you come +from--Canada, I think it is, isn't it?" + +"Yes," I answered, "we have one just like that." + +"This war finance is glorious stuff, isn't it?" continued +the Sultan. "How much do you think we owe?" + +"I haven't an idea," I said. + +"Wait a minute," said Abdul. He touched a bell and at +the sound of it there came shuffling into the room my +venerable old acquaintance Toomuch Koffi, the Royal +Secretary. But to my surprise he no longer wore his +patriarchal beard, his flowing robe and his girdle. He +was clean shaven and close cropped and dressed in a short +jacket like an American bell boy. + +"You remember Toomuch, I think," said Abdul. "I've +reconstructed him a little, as you see." + +"The Peace of Allah be upon thine head," said Toomuch +Koffi to the Sultan, commencing a deep salaam. "What wish +sits behind thy forehead that thou shouldst ring the bell +for this humble creature of clay to come into the sunlight +of thy presence? Tell me, O Lord, if perchance--" + +"Here, here," interrupted the Sultan impatiently, "cut +all that stuff out, please. That ancient courtesy business +won't do, not if this country is to reconstruct itself +and come abreast of the great modern democracies. Say to +me simply 'What's the trouble?"' + +Toomuch bowed, and Abdul continued. "Look in your tablets +and see how much our public debt amounts to in American +dollars." + +The secretary drew forth his tablets and bowed his head +a moment in some perplexity over the figures that were +scribbled on them. "Multiplication," I heard him murmur, +"is an act of the grace of heaven; let me invoke a blessing +on FIVE, the perfect number, whereby the Pound Turkish +is distributed into the American dollar." + +He remained for a few moments with his eyes turned, as +if in supplication, towards the vaulted ceiling. + +"Have you got it?" asked Abdul. + +"Yes." + +"And what do we owe, adding it all together?" + +"Forty billion dollars," said Toomuch. + +"Isn't that wonderful!" exclaimed Abdul, with delight +radiating over his countenance. "Who would have thought +that before the war! Forty billion dollars! Aren't we +the financiers! Aren't we the bulwark of monetary power! +Can you touch that in Canada?" + +"No," I said, "we can't. We don't owe two billion yet." + +"Oh, never mind, never mind," said the little man in a +consoling tone. "You are only a young country yet. You'll +do better later on. And in any case I am sure you are +just as proud of your one billion as we are of our forty." + +"Oh, yes," I said, "we certainly are." + +"Come, come, that's something anyway. You're on the right +track, and you must not be discouraged if you're not up +to the Turkish standard yet. You must remember, as I told +you before, that Turkey leads the world in all ideas of +government and finance. Take the present situation. Here +we are, bankrupt--pass me the champagne, Toomuch, and +sit down with us--the very first nation of the lot. It's +a great feather in the cap of our financiers. It gives +us a splendid start for the new era of reconstruction +that we are beginning on. As you perhaps have heard we +are all hugely busy about it. You notice my books and +papers, do you not?" the Sultan added very proudly, waving +his hand towards a great pile of blue books, pamphlets +and documents that were heaped upon the floor beside him. + +"Why! I never knew before that you ever read anything!" +I exclaimed in amazement. + +"Never did. But everything's changed now, isn't it, +Toomuch? I sit and work here for hours every morning. +It's become a delight to me. After all," said Abdul, +lighting a big cigar and sticking up his feet on his pile +of papers with an air of the deepest comfort, "what is +there like work? So stimulating, so satisfying. I sit +here working away, just like this, most of the day. +There's nothing like it." + +"What are you working at?" I asked. + +"Reconstruction," said the little man, puffing a big +cloud from his cigar, "reconstruction." + +"What kind of reconstruction?" + +"All kinds--financial, industrial, political, social. +It's great stuff. By the way," he continued with great +animation, "would you like to be my Minister of Labour? +No? Well, I'm sorry. I half hoped you would. We're having +no luck with them. The last one was thrown into the +Bosphorous on Monday. Here's the report on it--no, that's +the one on the shooting of the Minister of Religion--ah! +here it is--Report on the Drowning of the Minister of +Labour. Let me read you a bit of this: I call this one +of the best reports, of its kind, that have come in." + +"No, no," I said, "don't bother to read it. Just tell me +who did it and why." + +"Workingmen," said the Sultan, very cheerfully, "a +delegation. They withheld their reasons." + +"So you are having labour troubles here too?" I asked. + +"Labour troubles!" exclaimed the little Sultan rolling +up his eyes. "I should say so. The whole of Turkey is +bubbling with labour unrest like the rosewater in a +narghile. Look at your tablets, Toomuch, and tell me what +new strikes there have been this morning." + +The aged Secretary fumbled with his notes and began to +murmur--"Truly will I try with the aid of Allah--" + +"Now, now," said Abdul, warningly, "that won't do. Say +simply 'Sure.' Now tell me." + +The Secretary looked at a little list and read: "The +strikes of to-day comprise--the wig-makers, the dog +fanciers, the conjurers, the snake charmers, and the +soothsayers." + +"You hear that," said Abdul proudly. "That represents +some of the most skilled labour in Turkey." + +"I suppose it does," I said, "but tell me Abdul--what +about the really necessary trades, the coal miners, the +steel workers, the textile operatives, the farmers, and +the railway people. Are they working?" + +The little Sultan threw himself back on his cushions in +a paroxysm of laughter, in which even his ancient Secretary +was feign to join. + +"My dear sir, my dear sir!" he laughed, "don't make me +die of laughter. Working! those people working! Surely +you don't think we are so behind hand in Turkey as all +that! All those worker's stopped absolutely months ago. +It is doubtful if they'll ever work again. There's a +strong movement in Turkey to abolish all NECESSARY work +altogether." + +"But who then," I asked, "is working?" + +"Look on the tablets, Toomuch, and see." + +The aged Secretary bowed, turned over the leaves of his +"tablets," which I now perceived on a closer view to be +merely an American ten cent memorandum book. Then he +read: + +"The following, O all highest, still work--the beggars, +the poets, the missionaries, the Salvation Army, and the +instructors of the Youths of Light in the American +Presbyterian College." + +"But, dear me, Abdul," I exclaimed, "surely this situation +is desperate? What can your nation subsist on in such a +situation?" + +"Pooh, pooh," said the Sultan. "The interest on our debt +alone is two billion a year. Everybody in Turkey, great +or small, holds bonds to some extent. At the worst they +can all live fairly well on the interest. This is finance, +is it not, Toomuch Koffi?" + +"The very best and latest," said the aged man with a +profound salaam. + +"But what steps are you taking," I asked, "to remedy your +labour troubles?" + +"We are appointing commissions," said Abdul. "We appoint +one for each new labour problem. How many yesterday, +Toomuch?" + +"Forty-three," answered the secretary. + +"That's below our average, is it not?" said Abdul a little +anxiously. "Try to keep it up to fifty if you can." + +"And these commissions, what do they do?" + +"They make Reports," said Abdul, beginning to yawn as if +the continued brain exercise of conversation were fatiguing +his intellect, "excellent reports. We have had some that +are said to be perfect models of the very best Turkish." + "And what do they recommend?" + +"I don't know," said the Sultan. "We don't read them for +that. We like to read them simply as Turkish." + +"But what," I urged, "do you do with them? What steps do +you take?" + +"We send them all," replied the little man, puffing at +his pipe and growing obviously drowsy as he spoke, "to +Woodrow Wilson. He can deal with them. He is the great +conciliator of the world. Let him have--how do you say +it in English, it is a Turkish phrase--let him have his +stomach full of conciliation." + +Abdul dozed on his cushions for a moment. Then he reopened +his eyes. "Is there anything else you want to know," he +asked, "before I retire to the Inner Harem?" + +"Just one thing," I said, "if you don't mind. How do you +stand internationally? Are you coming into the New League +of Nations?" + +The Sultan shook his head. + +"No," he said, "we're not coming in. We are starting a +new league of our own." + +"And who are in it?" + +"Ourselves, and the Armenians--and let me see--the Irish, +are they not, Toomuch--and the Bulgarians--are there any +others, Toomuch?" + +"There is talk," said the Secretary "of the Yugo-Hebrovians +and the Scaroovians--" + +"Who are they?" I asked. + +"We don't know," said Abdul, testily. "They wrote to us. +They seem all right. Haven't you got a lot of people in +your league that you never heard of?" + +"I see," I said, "and what is the scheme that your league +is formed on?" + +"Very simple," said the Sultan. "Each member of the league +gives its WORD to all the other members. Then they all +take an OATH together. Then they all sign it. That is +absolutely binding." + +He rolled back on his cushions in an evident state of +boredom and weariness. + +"But surely," I protested, "you don't think that a league +of that sort can keep the peace?" + +"Peace!" exclaimed Abdul waking into sudden astonishment. +"Peace! I should think NOT! Our league is for WAR. Every +member gives its word that at the first convenient +opportunity it will knock the stuff out of any of the +others that it can." + +The little Sultan again subsided. Then he rose, with some +difficulty, from his cushions. + +"Toomuch," he said, "take our inquisitive friend out into +the town; take him to the Bosphorous; take him to the +island where the dogs are; take him anywhere." He paused +to whisper a few instructions into the ear of the Secretary. +"You understand," he said, "well, take him. As for me,"--he +gave a great yawn as he shuffled away, "I am about to +withdraw into my Inner Harem. Goodbye. I regret that I +cannot invite you in." + +"So do I," I said. "Goodbye." + + + + +IV.--Echoes of the War + + +1.--The Boy Who Came Back + +The war is over. The soldiers are coming home. On all +sides we are assured that the problem of the returned +soldier is the gravest of our national concerns. + +So I may say it without fear of contradiction,--since +everybody else has seen it,--that, up to the present +time, the returned soldier is a disappointment. He is +not turning out as he ought. According to all the +professors of psychology he was to come back bloodthirsty +and brutalised, soaked in militarism and talking only of +slaughter. In fact, a widespread movement had sprung up, +warmly supported by the business men of the cities, to +put him on the land. It was thought that central Nevada +or northern Idaho would do nicely for him. At the same +time an agitation had been started among the farmers, +with the slogan "Back to the city," the idea being that +farm life was so rough that it was not fair to ask the +returned soldier to share it. + +All these anticipations turn out to be quite groundless. + +The first returned soldier of whom I had direct knowledge +was my nephew Tom. When he came back, after two years in +the trenches, we asked him to dine with us. "Now, remember," +I said to my wife, "Tom will be a very different being +from what he was when he went away. He left us as little +more than a school boy, only in his first year at college; +in fact, a mere child. You remember how he used to bore +us with baseball talk and that sort of thing. And how +shy he was! You recall his awful fear of Professor Razzler, +who used to teach him mathematics. All that, of course, +will be changed now. Tom will have come back a man. We +must ask the old professor to meet him. It will amuse +Tom to see him again. Just think of the things he must +have seen! But we must be a little careful at dinner not +to let him horrify the other people with brutal details +of the war." + +Tom came. I had expected him to arrive in uniform with +his pocket full of bombs. Instead of this he wore ordinary +evening dress with a dinner jacket. I realised as I helped +him to take off his overcoat in the hall that he was very +proud of his dinner jacket. He had never had one before. +He said he wished the "boys" could see him in it. I asked +him why he had put off his lieutenant's uniform so quickly. +He explained that he was entitled not to wear it as soon +as he had his discharge papers signed; some of the fellows, +he said, kicked them off as soon as they left the ship, +but the rule was, he told me, that you had to wear the +thing till your papers were signed. + +Then his eye caught a glimpse sideways of Professor +Razzler standing on the hearth rug in the drawing room. +"Say," he said, "is that the professor?" I could see that +Tom was scared. All the signs of physical fear were +written on his face. When I tried to lead him into the +drawing room I realised that he was as shy as ever. Three +of the women began talking to him all at once. Tom +answered, yes or no,--with his eyes down. I liked the +way he stood, though, so unconsciously erect and steady. +The other men who came in afterwards, with easy greetings +and noisy talk, somehow seemed loud-voiced and +self-assertive. + +Tom, to my surprise, refused a cocktail. It seems, as he +explained, that he "got into the way of taking nothing +over there." I noticed that my friend Quiller, who is a +war correspondent, or, I should say, a war editorial +writer, took three cocktails and talked all the more +brilliantly for it through the opening courses of the +dinner, about the story of the smashing of the Hindenburg +line. He decided, after his second Burgundy, that it had +been simply a case of sticking it out. I say "Burgundy" +because we had substituted Burgundy, the sparkling kind, +for champagne at our dinners as one of our little war +economies. + +Tom had nothing to say about the Hindenburg line. In +fact, for the first half of the dinner he hardly spoke. +I think he was worried about his left hand. There is a +deep furrow across the back of it where a piece of shrapnel +went through and there are two fingers that will hardly +move at all. I could see that he was ashamed of its +clumsiness and afraid that someone might notice it. So +he kept silent. Professor Razzler did indeed ask him +straight across the table what he thought about the final +breaking of the Hindenburg line. But he asked it with +that same fierce look from under his bushy eyebrows with +which he used to ask Tom to define the path of a tangent, +and Tom was rattled at once. He answered something about +being afraid that he was not well posted, owing to there +being so little chance over there to read the papers. + +After that Professor Razzler and Mr. Quiller discussed +for us, most energetically, the strategy of the Lorraine +sector (Tom served there six months, but he never said +so) and high explosives and the possibilities of aerial +bombs. (Tom was "buried" by an aerial bomb but, of course, +he didn't break in and mention it.) + +But we did get him talking of the war at last, towards +the end of the dinner; or rather, the girl sitting next +to him did, and presently the rest of us found ourselves +listening. The strange thing was that the girl was a mere +slip of a thing, hardly as old as Tom himself. In fact, +my wife was almost afraid she might be too young to ask +to dinner: girls of that age, my wife tells me, have +hardly sense enough to talk to men, and fail to interest +them. This is a proposition which I think it better not +to dispute. + +But at any rate we presently realized that Tom was talking +about his war experiences and the other talk about the +table was gradually hushed into listening. + +This, as nearly as I can set it down, is what he told +us: That the French fellows picked up baseball in a way +that is absolutely amazing; they were not much good, it +seems, at the bat, at any rate not at first, but at +running bases they were perfect marvels; some of the +French made good pitchers, too; Tom knew a poilu who had +lost his right arm who could pitch as good a ball with +his left as any man on the American side; at the port +where Tom first landed and where they trained for a month +they had a dandy ball ground, a regular peach, a former +parade ground of the French barracks. On being asked +WHICH port it was, Tom said he couldn't remember; he +thought it was either Boulogne or Bordeaux or Brest,--at +any rate, it was one of those places on the English +channel. The ball ground they had behind the trenches +was not so good; it was too much cut up by long range +shells. But the ball ground at the base hospital (where +Tom was sent for his second wound) was an A1 ground. The +French doctors, it appears, were perfectly rotten at +baseball, not a bit like the soldiers. Tom wonders that +they kept them. Tom says that baseball had been tried +among the German prisoners, but they are perfect dubs. +He doubts whether the Germans will ever be able to play +ball. They lack the national spirit. On the other hand, +Tom thinks that the English will play a great game when +they really get into it. He had two weeks' leave in London +and went to see the game that King George was at, and +says that the King, if they will let him, will make the +greatest rooter of the whole bunch. + +Such was Tom's war talk. + +It grieved me to note that as the men sat smoking their +cigars and drinking liqueur whiskey (we have cut out port +at our house till the final peace is signed) Tom seemed +to have subsided into being only a boy again, a first-year +college boy among his seniors. They spoke to him in quite +a patronising way, and even asked him two or three direct +questions about fighting in the trenches, and wounds and +the dead men in No Man's Land and the other horrors that +the civilian mind hankers to hear about. Perhaps they +thought, from the boy's talk, that he had seen nothing. +If so, they were mistaken. For about three minutes, not +more, Tom gave them what was coming to them. He told +them, for example, why he trained his "fellows" to drive +the bayonet through the stomach and not through the head, +that the bayonet driven through the face or skull sticks +and,--but there is no need to recite it here. Any of the +boys like Tom can tell it all to you, only they don't +want to and don't care to. + +They've got past it. + +But I noticed that as the boy talked,--quietly and +reluctantly enough,--the older men fell silent and looked +into his face with the realisation that behind his simple +talk and quiet manner lay an inward vision of grim and +awful realities that no words could picture. + +I think that they were glad when we joined the ladies +again and when Tom talked of the amateur vaudeville show +that his company had got up behind the trenches. + +Later on, when the other guests were telephoning for +their motors and calling up taxis, Tom said he'd walk to +his hotel; it was only a mile and the light rain that +was falling would do him, he said, no harm at all. So he +trudged off, refusing a lift. + +Oh, no, I don't think we need to worry about the returned +soldier. Only let him return, that's all. When he does, +he's a better man than we are, Gunga Dinn. + + + + +2.--The War Sacrifices of Mr. Spugg + +Although we had been members of the same club for years, +I only knew Mr. Spugg by sight until one afternoon when +I heard him saying that he intended to send his chauffeur +to the war. + +It was said quite quietly,--no bombast or boasting about +it. Mr. Spugg was standing among a little group of +listening members of the club and when he said that he +had decided to send his chauffeur, he spoke with a kind +of simple earnestness, a determination that marks the +character of the man. + +"Yes," he said, "we need all the man power we can command. +This thing has come to a showdown and we've got to +recognise it. I told Henry that it's a showdown and that +he's to get ready and start right away." + +"Well, Spugg," said one of the members "you're certainly +setting us a fine example." + +"What else can a man do?" said Mr. Spugg. + +"When does your chauffeur leave?" asked another man. + +"Right away. I want him in the firing line just as quick +as I can get him there." + +"It's a fine thing you're doing, Spugg," said a third +member, "but do you realise that your chauffeur may be +killed?" + +"I must take my chance on that," answered Mr. Spugg, +firmly. "I've thought this thing out and made up my mind: +If my chauffeur is killed, I mean to pay for him,--full +and adequate compensation. The loss must fall on me, not +on him. Or, say Henry comes back mutilated,--say he loses +a leg,--say he loses two legs,--" + +Here Mr. Spugg looked about him at his listeners, with +a look that meant that even three legs wouldn't be too +much for him. + +"Whatever Henry loses I pay for. The loss shall fall on +me, every cent of it." + +"Spugg," said a quiet looking, neatly dressed man whom +I knew to be the president of an insurance company and +who reached out and shook the speaker by the hand, "this +is a fine thing you're doing, a big thing. But we mustn't +let you do it alone. Let our company take a hand in it. +We're making a special rate now on chauffeurs, footmen, +and house-servants sent to the war, quite below the rate +that actuarial figures justify. It is our little war +contribution," he added modestly. "We like to feel that +we're doing our bit, too. We had a chauffeur killed last +week. We paid for him right off without demur,--waived +all question of who killed him. I never signed a check +(as I took occasion to say in a little note I wrote to +his people) with greater pleasure." + +"What do you do if Henry's mutilated?" asked Mr. Spugg, +turning his quiet eyes on the insurance man and facing +the brutal facts of things without flinching. "What do +you pay? Suppose I lose the use of Henry's legs, what +then?" + +"It's all right," said his friend. "Leave it to us. +Whatever he loses, we make it good." + +"All right," said Spugg, "send me round a policy. I'm +going to see Henry clear through on this." + +It was at this point that at my own urgent request I was +introduced to Mr. Spugg, so that I might add my +congratulations to those of the others. I told him that +I felt, as all the other members of the club did, that +he was doing a big thing, and he answered again, in his +modest way, that he didn't see what else a man could do. + +"My son Alfred and I," he said, "talked it over last +night and we agreed that we can run the car ourselves, +or make a shot at it anyway. After all, it's war time." + +"What branch of the service are you putting your chauffeur +in?" I asked. + +"I'm not sure," he answered. "I think I'll send him up +in the air. It's dangerous, of course, but it's no time +to think about that." + +So, in due time, Mr. Spugg's chauffeur, Henry, went +overseas. He was reported first as in England. Next he +was right at the front, at the very firing itself. We +knew then,--everybody in the club knew that Mr. Spugg's +chauffeur might be killed at any moment. But great as +the strain must have been, Spugg went up and down to his +office and in and out of the club without a tremor. The +situation gave him a new importance in our eyes, something +tense. + +"This seems to be a terrific business," I said to him +one day at lunch, "this new German drive." + +"My chauffeur," said Mr. Spugg, "was right in the middle +of it." + +"He was, eh?" + +"Yes," he continued, "one shell burst in the air so near +him it almost broke his wings." + +Mr. Spugg told this with no false boasting or bravado, +eating his celery as he spoke of it. Here was a man who +had nearly had his chauffeur's wings blown off and yet +he never moved a muscle. I began to realize the kind of +resolute stuff that the man was made of. + +A few days later bad news came to the club. + +"Have you heard the bad news about Spugg?" someone asked. + +"No, what?" + +"His chauffeur's been gassed." + +"How is he taking it?" + +"Fine. He's sending off his gardener to take the chauffeur's +place." + +So that was Mr. Spugg's answer to the Germans. + +We lunched together that day. + +"Yes," he said, "Henry's gassed. How it happened I don't +know. He must have come down out of the air. I told him +I wanted him in the air. But let it pass. It's done now." + +"And you're sending your gardener?" + +"I am," said Spugg. "He's gone already. I called him in +from the garden yesterday. I said, 'William, Henry's been +gassed. Our first duty is to keep up our man power at +the front. You must leave to-night.'" + +"What are you putting William into?" I asked + +"Infantry. He'll do best in the trenches,--digs well and +is a very fair shot. Anyway I want him to see all the +fighting that's going. If the Germans want give and take +in this business they can have it. They'll soon see who +can stand it best. I told William when he left. I said, +'William, we've got to show these fellows that man for +man we're a match for them.' That's the way I look at +it, man for man." + +I watched Mr. Spugg's massive face as he went on with +his meal. Not a nerve of it moved. If he felt any fear, +at least he showed no trace of it. + +After that I got war news from him at intervals, in little +scraps, as I happened to meet him. "The war looks bad," +I said to him one day as I chanced upon him getting into +his motor. "This submarine business is pretty serious." + +"It is," he said, "William was torpedoed yesterday." + +Then he got into his car and drove away, as quietly as +if nothing had happened. + +A little later that day I heard him talking about it in +the club. "Yes," he was saying, "a submarine. It torpedoed +William,--my gardener. I have both a chauffeur and a +gardener at the war. William was picked up on a raft. +He's in pretty bad shape. My son Alfred had a cable from +him that he's coming home. We've both telegraphed him to +stick it out." + +The news was the chief topic in the club that day. "Spugg's +gardener has been torpedoed," they said, "but Spugg +refuses to have him quit and come home." "Well done, +Spugg," said everybody. + +After that we had news from time to time about both +William and Henry. + +"Henry's out of the hospital," said Spugg. "I hope to +have him back in France in a few days. William's in bad +shape still. I had a London surgeon go and look at him. +I told him not to mind the expense but to get William +fixed up right away. It seems that one arm is more or +less paralysed. I've wired back to him not to hesitate. +They say William's blood is still too thin for the +operation. I've cabled to them to take some of Henry's. +I hate to do it, but this is no time to stick at anything." + +A little later William and Henry were reported both back +in France. This was at the very moment of the great +offensive. But Spugg went about his daily business unmoved. +Then came the worst news of all. "William and Henry," he +said to me, "are both missing. I don't know where the +devil they are." + +"Missing?" I repeated. + +"Both of them. The Germans have caught them both. I +suppose I shan't have either of them back now till the +war is all over." + +He gave a slight sigh,--the only sign of complaint that +ever I had heard come from him. + +But the next day we learned what was Spugg's answer to +the German's capture of William and Henry. + +"Have you heard what Spugg is doing?" the members of the +club asked one another. + +"What?" + +"He's sending over Meadows, HIS OWN MAN!" + +There was no need to comment on it. The cool courage of +the thing spoke for itself. Meadows,--Spugg's own man,--his +house valet, without whom he never travelled twenty miles! + +"What else was there to do?" said Mr. Spugg when I asked +him if it was true that Meadows was going. "I take no +credit for sending Meadows nor, for the matter of that, +for anything that Meadows may do over there. It was a +simple matter of duty. My son and I had him into the +dining room last night after dinner. 'Meadows,' we said, +'Henry and William are caught. Our man power at the front +has got to be kept up. There's no one left but ourselves +and you. There's no way out of it. You'll have to go.'" + +"But how," I protested, "can you get along with Meadows, +your valet, gone? You'll be lost!" + +"We must do the best we can. We've talked it all over. +My son will help me dress and I will help him. We can +manage, no doubt." + +So Meadows went. + +After this Mr. Spugg, dressed as best he could manage +it, and taking turns with his son in driving his own +motor, was a pathetic but uncomplaining object. + +Meadows meantime was reported as with the heavy artillery, +doing well. "I hope nothing happens to Meadows," Spugg +kept saying. "If it does, we're stuck. We can't go +ourselves. We're too busy. We've talked it over and we've +both decided that it's impossible to get away from the +office,--not with business as brisk as it is now. We're +busier than we've been in ten years and can't get off +for a day. We may try to take a month off for the +Adirondacks a little later but as for Europe, it's out +of the question." + +Meantime, one little bit of consolation came to help Mr. +Spugg to bear the burden of the war. I found him in the +lounge room of the club one afternoon among a group of +men, exhibiting two medals that were being passed from +hand to hand. + +"Sent to me by the French government," he explained +proudly. "They're for William and Henry. The motto means, +'For Conspicuous Courage"' (Mr. Spugg drew himself up +with legitimate pride). "I shall keep one and let Alfred +keep the other till they come back." Then he added, as +an afterthought, "They may never come back." + +From that day on, Mr. Spugg, with his French medal on +his watch chain, was the most conspicuous figure in the +club. He was pointed out as having done more than any +other one man in the institution to keep the flag flying. +But presently the limit of Mr. Spugg's efforts and +sacrifices was reached. Even patriotism such as his must +have some bounds. + +On entering the club one afternoon I could hear his voice +bawling vociferously in one of the telephone cabinets in +the hall. "Hello, Washington," he was shouting. "Is that +Washington? Long Distance, I want Washington." + +Fifteen minutes later he came up to the sitting room, +still flushed with indignation and excitement. "That's +the limit," he said, "the absolute limit!" + +"What's the matter?" I asked. + +"They drafted my son Alfred," he answered. + +"Just imagine it! When we're so busy in the office that +we're getting down there at half past eight in the morning! +Drafted Alfred! 'Great Caesar' I said to them! 'Look +here! You've had my chauffeur and he's gassed, and you've +had my gardener and he's torpedoed and they're both +prisoners, and last month I sent you my own man! That,' +I said, 'is about the limit.'" + +"What did they say," I asked. + +"Oh, it's all right. They've fixed it all up and they've +apologized as well. Alfred won't go, of course, but it +makes one realise that you can carry a thing too far. +Why, they'd be taking me next!" + +"Oh, surely not!" I said. + + + + +3.--If Germany Had Won + +Sometimes, in the past, we have grown a little impatient +with our North American civilisation, with its strident +clamour, its noisy elections, its extremes of liberty, +its occasional corruption and the faults that we now see +were the necessary accompaniments of its merits. But let +us set beside it a picture such as this, taken from the +New York Imperial Gazette of 1925--or from any paper of +the same period, such as would have been published if +Germany had won. + +---- + +General Boob of Boobenstiff, Imperial Governor of New +York, will attend divine (Imperial) service on Sunday +morning next at the church of St. John the (Imperial) +Divine. The subway cars will be stopped while the General +is praying. All subway passengers are enjoined (befohlen), +during the thus-to-be-ordered period of cessation, to +remain in a reverential attitude. Those in the seats will +keep the head bowed. Those holding to the straps will +elevate one leg, keeping the knee in the air. + +On Monday evening General Boob von Boobenstiff, Imperial +Governor of New York, will be graciously pleased to attend +a performance at the (Imperial) Winter Garden on Upper +(Imperial) Broadway. It is ordered that on the entrance +of His Excellency the audience will spontaneously rise +and break into three successive enthusiastic cheers. Mr. +Al Jolson will remain kneeling on the stage till the +Gubernatorial All Highest has seated itself. Mr. Jolson +will then, by special (Imperial) permission, be allowed +to make four jokes in German to be taken from a list +supplied by the Imperial Censor of Humour. The Governor, +accompanied by his military staff, will then leave, and +the performance will close. + +---- + +It is ordered that, on Tuesday afternoon, as a sign of +thankfulness for the blessings of the German peace, the +business men of New York shall walk in procession from +the Battery to the Bronx. They will then be inspected by +Governor Boobenstiff. If the Governor is delayed in +arriving at the hereafter-to-be-indicated point of general +put-yourself-there, the procession will walk back to the +Battery and back again, continuing so, pro and con, till +the arrival of the Governor. + +---- + +The approaching visit of His Royal and Imperial Solemnity +the Prince Apparent of Bavaria shall be heralded in the +(Imperial) City of New York with general rejoicing. The +city shall be spontaneously decorated with flags. Smiles +of cordial welcome shall appear on every face. Animated +crowds of eager citizens shall move to and fro and shouts +of welcome shall, by order of the Chief of Police, break +from the lips. Among those who are expected to be in +the Imperial city to welcome his Royal Solemnity will be +the Hereditary Grand Duke of Schlitzin-Mein (formerly +Milwaukee), the Prince Margrave of Wisconsin and the +Hereditary Chief Constable of Nevada. + +---- + +We are delighted to be able to chronicle that on the +morning of the 14th there was born at the Imperial +Residence of His Simplicity the Hereditary Governor of +the Provinz (formerly State) of New York, in the (Imperial) +city of Albany a tenth son to the illustrious Prince and +Princess who rule over us with such fatherly care. The +boy was christened yesterday at the (Imperial) Lutheran +Church and is to bear the name Frederick Wilhelm Amelia +Mary Johan Heinrich Ruprecht. The whole city of Albany +is thrown into the wildest rejoicing. The legislature +has voted an addition of $400,000 per annum to the civil +list for the maintenance of the young prince. Joy suffuses +every home. This being the tenth son born to their +Highnesses in ten years it is felt that the future of +the dynasty is more or less secured. Even the humblest +home is filled with the reflected joy that streams out +from the Residency. Their Royal Highnesses appeared +yesterday on the balcony amid the wild huzzoos of the +people transported with joy. His Simplicity the Prince +wore the full dress uniform of an Imperial Jaeger of the +Adirondacks, and Her Royal Highness was attired as a +Colonel of Artillery. It is impossible to express the +jubilation of the moment. + +---- + +We regret to report that owing to the jostling (possibly +accidental, but none the less actual) of an Imperial +officer--Field-Lieutenant Schmidt--at the entrance to +Brooklyn Bridge, the bridge is declared closed to the +public until further notice. We are proud to state the +Field Lieutenant at once cut down his cowardly assailant +with his saber. It has pleased His Unspeakable Loftiness, +the German Emperor, to cable his congratulations to the +Lieutenant, who will receive The Order of the Dead Dog +for the noble way in which he has maintained the traditions +of his uniform. + +---- + +A striking feature of the now-taking-place Art Exhibition +at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (formerly Metropolitan +Gallery) in the Thiergarten (formerly Central Park) is +offered by the absolutely marvellous paintings exhibited by +the Princess Marie Paul Cecilie Hohenzollern-Stickitintothem, +a cousin of Our Noble Governor. The paintings which the +Princess has been preciously pleased to paint and has even +stooped to exhibit to the filled-with-wonder eye of the +public have been immediately awarded the first prize in +each class. While it would be invidious even to suggest that +any one of Her High Incipiency's pictures is better than any +other, our feeling is that especially the picture Night on +the Hudson River is of so rare a quality both of technique +and of inspiration that it supersedes the bounds of the +hitherto-thought-to-be-possible art in America. The +Princess's conception of night, black as a pall and yet +luminous as a polished stove pipe, is only equalled by +her feeling towards the Hudson which lies extended in +soporific superficiality beneath the sable covering of +darkness in which Her Highness has been pleased to +overwhelm it. Throughout the day an eager-to-see crowd +of spectators were beaten back from the picture by the +police with clubs. + +---- + +We are permitted officially to confirm the already +gladly-from-mouth-to-mouth-whispered news of an approaching +marriage between Prince Heinrich of Texas and the Princess +Amelia Victoria Louisa, Hereditary Heir Consumptive of +the Imperial Provinz of Maine. The marriage, so it is +whispered, although performed in accordance with the +wishes of the Emperor as expressed by cable, is in every +way a love match. What lends a touch of romance to the +betrothal of the Royal Younglings is that the Prince had +never even seen the Princess Amelia until the day when +the legislature of the Provinz of Maine voted her a +marriage portion of half a million dollars. Immediately +on this news a secret visit was arranged, the Prince +journeying to Bangor incognito as the Count of Flim-Flam +in the costume of an officer of the Imperial Scavengers. +On receipt of the Emperor's telegram the happy pair fell +in love with one another at once. What makes the approaching +union particularly auspicious for the whole country is +that it brings with it the union of Maine and Texas, +henceforth to form a single grateful provinz. The Royal +Pair, it is understood, will live alternately in each +province a month at a time and the legislature, the +executive officials, the courts of law and the tax +collectors will follow them to and fro. + +We cannot but contrast this happy issue with the turbulence +and disorder in which our country lived before the Great +War of Liberation. + +---- + +We are delighted to learn from our despatches from Boston +that the Hohenzollern Institute (formerly Harvard +University) is to be opened next autumn. By express +permission of the Imperial Government, classes in English +will be permitted for half an hour each day. + +By the clemency of the Emperor the sentences of W. H. +Taft, and W. Wilson have been commuted from the sentence +of fifty years imprisonment to imprisonment for life. We +hope, in a special supplement, to be able to add the full +list of sentences, executions, imprisonments, fines, and +attainders that have been promulgated in honour of the +birthday of our Imperial Sovereign. + + + + +4.--War and Peace at the Galaxy Club + +The Great Peace Kermesse at the Galaxy Club, to which I +have the honour to belong, held with a view to wipe out +the Peace Deficit of the Club, has just ended. For three +weeks our club house has been a blaze of illumination. +We have had four orchestras in attendance. There have +been suppers and dances every night. Our members have +not spared themselves. + +The Kermesse is now over. We have time, as our lady +members are saying, to turn round. + +For the moment we are sitting listening, amid bursts of +applause, to our treasurer's statement. As we hear it we +realise that this Peace Kermesse has proved the culmination +and crown of four winters' war work. + +But I must explain from the beginning. + +Our efforts began with the very opening of the war. We +felt that a rich organisation like ours ought to do +something for the relief of the Belgians. At the same +time we felt that our members would rather receive +something in the way of entertainment for their money +than give it straight out of their pockets. + +We therefore decided first to hold a public lecture in +the club, and engaged the services of Professor Dry to +lecture on the causes of the war. + +In view of the circumstances, Professor Dry very kindly +reduced his lecture fee, which (he assured us) is generally +two hundred and fifty dollars, to two hundred and forty. + +The lecture was most interesting. Professor Dry traced +the causes of the War backwards through the Middle Ages. +He showed that it represented the conflict of the +brachiocephalic culture of the Wendic races with the +dolichocephalic culture of the Alpine stock. At the time +when the lights went out he had got it back to the eighth +century before Christ. + +Unfortunately the night, being extremely wet, was +unfavourable. Few of our members care to turn out to +lectures in wet weather. The treasurer was compelled to +announce to the Committee a net deficit of two hundred +dollars. Some of the ladies of the Committee moved that +the entire deficit be sent to the Belgians, but were +overruled by the interference of the men. + +But the error was seen to have been in the choice of the +lecturer. Our members were no longer interested in the +causes of the war. The topic was too old. We therefore +held another public lecture in the club, on the topic +What Will Come After the War. It was given by a very +talented gentleman, a Mr. Guess, a most interesting +speaker, who reduced his fee (as the thing was a war +charity) by one-half, leaving it at three hundred dollars. +Unhappily the weather was against us. It was too fine. +Our members scarcely care to listen to lectures in fine +weather. And it turned out that our members are not +interested in what will come after the war. The topic is +too new. Our receipts of fifty dollars left us with a +net deficit of two hundred and fifty. Our treasurer +therefore proposed that we should carry both deficits +forward and open a Special Patriotic Entertainment Account +showing a net total deficit of four hundred and fifty +dollars. + +In the opinion of the committee our mistake had been in +engaging outside talent. It was felt that the cost of +this was prohibitive. It was better to invite the services +of the members of the club themselves. A great number of +the ladies expressed their willingness to take part in +any kind of war work that took the form of public +entertainment. + +Accordingly we presented a play. It was given in the ball +room of the club house, a stage being specially put up +for us by a firm of contractors. The firm (as a matter +of patriotism) did the whole thing for us at cost, merely +charging us with the labour, the material, the time, the +thought and the anxiety that they gave to the job, but +for nothing else. In fact, the whole staging, including +lights, plumbing and decorations was merely a matter of +five hundred dollars. The plumbers very considerately +made no charge for their time, but only for their work. + +It was felt that it would be better to have a new play +than an old. We selected a brilliant little modern +drawing-room comedy never yet presented. The owner of +the copyright, a theatrical firm, let us use it for a +merely nominal fee of two hundred dollars, including the +sole right to play the piece forever. There being only +twenty-eight characters in it, it was felt to be more +suitable than a more ambitious thing. The tickets were +placed at one dollar, no one being admitted free except +the performers themselves, and the members who very kindly +acted as scene shifters, curtain lifters, ushers, door-keepers, +programme sellers, and the general committee of management. +All the performers, at their own suggestion, supplied their +own costumes, charging nothing to the club except the material +and the cost of dressmaking. Beyond this there was no expense +except for the fee, very reasonable, of Mr. Skip, the +professional coach who trained the performers, and who asked +us, in view of the circumstances, less than half of what he +would have been willing to accept. + +The proceeds were to be divided between the Belgian Fund +and the Red Cross, giving fifty per cent to each. A motion +in amendment from the ladies' financial committee to give +fifty per cent to the Belgian Fund and sixty per cent to +the Red Cross was voted down. + +Unfortunately it turned out that the idea of a PLAY was +a mistake in judgment. Our members, it seemed, did not +care to go to see a play except in a theatre. A great +number of them, however, very kindly turned out to help +in shifting the scenery and in acting as ushers. + +Our treasurer announced, as the result of the play, a +net deficit of twelve hundred dollars. He moved, with +general applause, that it be carried forward. + +The total deficit having now reached over sixteen hundred +dollars, there was a general feeling that a very special +effort must be made to remove it. It was decided to hold +Weekly Patriotic Dances in the club ball room, every +Saturday evening. No charge was made for admission to +the dances, but a War Supper was served at one dollar a +head. + +Unfortunately the dances, as first planned, proved again +an error. It appeared that though our members are +passionately fond of dancing, few if any of them cared +to eat at night. The plan was therefore changed. The +supper was served first, and was free, and for the dancing +after supper a charge was made of one dollar, per person. +This again was an error. It seems that after our members +have had supper they prefer to go home and sleep. After +one winter of dancing the treasurer announced a total +Patriotic Relief Deficit of five thousand dollars, to be +carried forward to next year. This sum duly appeared in +the annual balance sheet of the club. The members, +especially the ladies, were glad to think that we were +at least doing SOMETHING for the war. + +At this point some of our larger men, themselves financial +experts, took hold. They said that our entertainments +had been on too small a scale. They told us that we had +been "undermined by overhead expenses." The word "overhead" +was soon on everybody's lips. We were told that if we +could "distribute our overhead" it would disappear. It +was therefore planned to hold a great War Kermesse with +a view to spreading out the overhead so thin that it +would vanish. + +But it was at this very moment that the Armistice burst +upon us in a perfectly unexpected fashion. Everyone of +our members was, undoubtedly, delighted that the war was +over but there was a very general feeling that it would +have been better if we could have had a rather longer +notice of what was coming. It seemed, as many of our +members said, such a leap in the dark to rush into peace +all at once. It was said indeed by our best business men +that in financial circles they had been fully aware that +there was a danger of peace for some time and had taken +steps to discount the peace risk. + +But for the club itself the thing came with a perfect +crash. The whole preparation of the great Kermesse was +well under way when the news broke upon us. For a time +the members were aghast. It looked like ruin. But presently +it was suggested that it might still be possible to save +the club by turning the whole affair into a Peace Kermesse +and devoting the proceeds to some suitable form of relief. +Luckily it was discovered that there was still a lot of +starvation in Russia, and fortunately it turned out that +in spite of the armistice the Turks were still killing +the Armenians. + +So it was decided to hold the Kermesse and give all the +profits realised by it to the Victims of the Peace. +Everybody set to work again with a will. The Kermesse +indeed had to be postponed for a few months to make room +for the changes needed, but it has now been held and, in +a certain sense, it has been the wildest kind of success. +The club, as I said, has been a blaze of light for three +weeks. We have had four orchestras in attendance every +evening. There have been booths draped with the flags of +all the Allies, except some that we were not sure about, +in every corridor of the club. There have been dinner +parties and dances every evening. The members, especially +the ladies, have not spared themselves. Many of them have +spent practically all their time at the Kermesse, not +getting home until two in the morning. + +And yet somehow one has felt that underneath the surface +it was not a success. The spirit seemed gone out of it. +The members themselves confessed in confidence that in +spite of all they could do their hearts were not in it. +Peace had somehow taken away all the old glad sense of +enjoyment. As to spending money at the Kermesse all the +members admitted frankly that they had no heart for it. +This was especially the case when the rumour got abroad +that the Armenians were a poor lot and that some of the +Turks were quite gentlemanly fellows. It was said, too, +that if the Russians did starve it would do them a lot +of good. + +So it was known even before we went to hear the financial +report that there would be no question of profits on the +Kermesse going to the Armenians or the Russians. + +And to-night the treasurer has been reading out to a +general meeting the financial results as nearly as they +can be computed. + +He has put the Net Patriotic Deficit, as nearly as he +can estimate it, at fifteen thousand dollars, though he +has stated, with applause from the ladies, that the Gross +Deficit is bigger still. + +The Ladies Financial Committee has just carried a motion +that the whole of the deficit, both net and gross, be +now forwarded to the Red Cross Society (sixty per cent), +the Belgian Relief Fund (fifty per cent), and the remainder +invested in the War Loan. + +But there is a very general feeling among the male members +that the club will have to go into liquidation. Peace +has ruined us. Not a single member, so far as I am aware, +is prepared to protest against the peace, or is anything +but delighted to think that the war is over. At the same +time we do feel that if we could have had a longer notice, +six months for instance, we could have braced ourselves +better to stand up against it and meet the blow when it +fell. + +I think, too, that our feeling is shared outside. + + + + +5.--The War News as I Remember it + +Everybody, I think, should make some little contribution +towards keeping alive the memories of the great war. In +the larger and heroic sense this is already being done. +But some of the minor things are apt to be neglected. +When the record of the war has been rewritten into real +history, we shall be in danger of forgetting what WAR +NEWS was like and the peculiar kind of thrill that +accompanied its perusal. + +Hence in order to preserve it for all time I embalm some +little samples of it, selected of course absolutely at +random,--as such things always are--in the pages of this +book. + +Let me begin with:-- + + + + +I--THE CABLE NEWS FROM RUSSIA + +This was the great breakfast-table feature for at least +three years. Towards the end of the war some people began +to complain of it. They said that they questioned whether +it was accurate. Here for example is one fortnight of +it. + +Petrograd, April 14. Word has reached here that the + Germans have captured enormous quantities of grain on + the Ukrainian border. +April 15. The Germans have captured no grain on the + Ukrainian border. The country is swept bare. +April 16. Everybody in Petrograd is starving. +April 17. There is no lack of food in Petrograd. +April 18. The death of General Korniloff is credibly + reported this morning. +April 19. It is credibly reported this morning that + General Korniloff is alive. +April 20. It is credibly reported that General + Korniloff is hovering between life and death. +April 21. The Bolsheviki are overthrown. +April 22. The Bolsheviki got up again. +April 23. The Czar died last night. +April 24. The Czar did not die last night. +April 25. General Kaleidescope and his Cossacks + are moving north. +April 26. General Kaleidescope and his Cossacks + are moving south. +April 27. General Kaleidescope and his Cossacks + are moving east. +April 28. General Kaleidescope and his Cossacks + are moving west. +April 29. It is reported that the Cossacks under General + Kaleidescope have revolted. They demand the Maximum. + General Kaleidescope hasn't got it. +April 30. The National Pan-Russian Constituent Universal + Duma which met this morning at ten-thirty, was + dissolved at twenty-five minutes to eleven. + +My own conclusion, reached with deep regret, is that the +Russians are not yet fit for the blessings of the Magna +Carta and the Oklahama Constitution of 1907. They ought +to remain for some years yet under the Interstate Commerce +Commission. + + + + +II--SAMPLE OF SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE + +New York (through London via Holland and coming out at +Madrid). Mr. O. Howe Lurid, our special correspondent, +writing from "Somewhere near Somewhere" and describing +the terrific operations of which he has just been an +eyewitness, says: + +"From the crest where I stood, the whole landscape about +me was illuminated with the fierce glare of the bursting +shells, while the ground on which I stood quivered with +the thunderous detonation of the artillery. + +"Nothing in the imagination of a Dante could have equalled +the lurid and pyrogriffic grandeur of the scene. Streams +of fire rose into the sky, falling in bifurcated +crystallations in all directions. Disregarding all personal +danger, I opened one eye and looked at it. + +"I found myself now to be the very centre of the awful +conflict. While not stating that the whole bombardment +was directed at me personally, I am pretty sure that it +was." + +I admit that there was a time, at the very beginning of +the war, when I liked this kind of thing served up with +my bacon and eggs every morning, in the days when a man +could eat bacon and eggs without being labelled a +pro-German. Later on I came to prefer the simple statements +as to the same scene and event, given out by Sir Douglas +Haig and General Pershing--after this fashion: + +"Last night at ten-thirty P.M. our men noticed signs of +a light bombardment apparently coming from the German +lines." + + + + +III--THE TECHNICAL WAR DESPATCHES + +The best of these, as I remember them, used to come from +the Italian front and were done after this fashion:-- + +"Tintino, near Trombono. Friday, April 3. The Germans, +as I foresaw last month they would, have crossed the +Piave in considerable force. Their position, as I said +it would be, is now very strong. The mountains bordering +the valley run--just as I foresaw they would--from +northwest to southeast. The country in front is, as I +anticipated, flat. Venice is, as I assured my readers it +would be, about thirty miles distant from the Piave, +which falls, as I expected it would, into the Adriatic." + + + + +IV--THE WAR PROPHECIES + +Startling Prophecy in Paris. All Paris is wildly excited +over the extraordinary prophecy of Madame Cleo de Clichy +that the war will be over in four weeks. Madame Cleo, +who is now as widely known as a diseuse, a liseuse, a +friseuse and a clairvoyante, leaped into sudden prominence +last November by her startling announcement that the +seven letters in the Kaiser's name W i l h e l m represented +the seven great beasts of the apocalypse; in the next +month she electrified all Paris by her disclosure that +the four letters of the word C z a r--by substituting +the figure 1 for C, 9 for Z, 1 for A, and 7 for R produce +the date 1917, and indicated a revolution in Russia. The +salon of Madame Cleo is besieged by eager crowds night +and day. She may prophesy again at any minute. + +Startling Forecast. A Russian peasant, living in +Semipalatinsk, has foretold that the war will end in +August. The wildest excitement prevails not only in +Semipalatinsk but in the whole of it. + +Extraordinary Prophecy. Rumbumbabad, India. April 1. The +whole neighbourhood has been thrown into a turmoil by +the prophecy of Ram Slim, a Yogi of this district, who +has foretold that the war will be at an end in September. +People are pouring into Rumbumbabad in ox-carts from all +directions. Business in Rumbumbabad is at a standstill. + +Excitement in Midgeville, Ohio. William Bessemer Jones, +a retired farmer of Cuyahoga, Ohio, has foretold that +the war will end in October. People are flocking into +Midgeville in lumber wagons from all parts of the country. +Jones, who bases his prophecy on the Bible, had hitherto +been thought to be half-witted. This is now recognised +to have been a wrong estimate of his powers. Business in +Midgeville is at a standstill. + +Dog's Foot. Wyoming. April 1. An Indian of the Cheyenne +tribe has foretold that the war will end in December. +Business among the Indians is at a standstill. + + + + +V--DIPLOMATIC REVELATIONS + +These were sent out in assortments, and labelled Vienna, +via London, through Stockholm. After reading them with +feverish eagerness for nearly four years, I decided that +they somehow lack definiteness. Here is the way they ran: + +"Special Correspondence. I learn from a very high authority, +whose name I am not at liberty to mention, (speaking to +me at a place which I am not allowed to indicate and in +a language which I am forbidden to use)--that +Austria-Hungary is about to take a diplomatic step of +the highest importance. What this step is, I am forbidden +to say. But the consequences of it--which unfortunately +I am pledged not to disclose--will be such as to effect +results which I am not free to enumerate." + + + + +VI--A NEW GERMAN PEACE FORMULA + +Dr. Hertling, the Imperial Chancellor, speaking through +his hat in the Reichstag, said that he wished to state +in the clearest language of which he was capable that +the German peace plan would not only provide the fullest +self determination of all ethnographic categories, but +would predicate the political self consciousness +(politisches Selbstbewusztsein) of each geographical and +entomological unit, subject only to the necessary +rectilinear guarantees for the seismographic action of +the German empire. The entire Reichstag, especially the +professorial section of it, broke into unrestrained +applause. It is felt that the new formula is the equivalent +of a German Magna Carta--or as near to it as they can +get. + + + + +VII--THE FINANCIAL NEWS + +The war finance, as I remember it, always supplied items +of the most absorbing interest. I do not mean to say that +I was an authority on finance or held any official position +in regard to it. But I watched it. I followed it in the +newspapers. When the war began I knew nothing about it. +But I picked up a little bit here and a little bit there +until presently I felt that I had a grasp on it not easily +shaken off. + +It was a simple matter, anyway. Take the case of the +rouble. It rose and it fell. But the reason was always +perfectly obvious. The Russian news ran, as I got it in +my newspapers, like this:-- + +"M. Touchusoff, the new financial secretary of the Soviet, +has declared that Russia will repay her utmost liabilities. +Roubles rose." + +"M. Touchusoff, the late financial secretary of the +Soviet, was thrown into the Neva last evening. Roubles +fell." + +"M. Gorky, speaking in London last night, said that Russia +was a great country. Roubles rose." + +"A Dutch correspondent, who has just beat his way out of +Russia, reports that nothing will induce him to go back. +Roubles fell." + +"Mr. Arthur Balfour, speaking in the House of Commons +last night, paid a glowing tribute to the memory of Peter +the Great. Roubles rose." + +"The local Bolsheviki of New York City at the Pan-Russian +Congress held in Murphy's Rooms, Fourth Avenue, voted +unanimously in favor of a Free Russia. Roubles never +budged." + +With these examples in view, anybody, I think, could +grasp the central principles of Russian finance. All that +one needed to know was what M. Touchusoff and such people +were going to say, and who would be thrown into the Neva, +and the rise and fall of the rouble could be foreseen to +a kopeck. In speculation by shrewd people with proper +judgment as to when to buy and when to sell the rouble, +large fortunes could be made, or even lost, in a day. + +But after all the Russian finance was simple. That of +our German enemies was much more complicated and yet +infinitely more successful. That at least I gathered from +the little news items in regard to German finance that +used to reach us in cables that were headed Via Timbuctoo +and ran thus:-- + +"The fourth Imperial War Loan of four billion marks, to +be known as the Kaiser's War Loan, was oversubscribed +to-day in five minutes. Investors thronged the banks, +with tears in their eyes, bringing with them everything +that they had. The bank managers, themselves stained with +tears, took everything that was offered. Each investor +received a button proudly displayed by the +too-happy-for-words out-of-the-bank-hustling recipient." + + + + +6.--Some Just Complaints About the War + +No patriotic man would have cared to lift up his voice +against the Government in war time. Personally, I should +not want to give utterance even now to anything in the +way of criticism. But the complaints which were presented +below came to me, unsought and unsolicited, and represented +such a variety of sources and such just and unselfish +points of view that I think it proper, for the sake of +history, to offer them to the public. + +I give them, just as they reached me, without modifications +of any sort. + + +The just complaint of Mr. Threadler, my tailor, as +expressed while measuring me for my Win-the-War autumn +suit. + +"Complaint, sir? Oh, no, we have no complaint to make in +our line of business, none whatever (forty-two, Mr. +Jephson). It would hardly become us to complain (side +pockets, Mr. Jephson). But we think, perhaps, it is rather +a mistake for the Government (thirty-three on the leg) +to encourage the idea of economy in dress. Our attitude +is that the well dressed man (a little fuller in the +chest? Yes, a little fuller in the chest, please, Mr. +Jephson) is better able to serve his country than the +man who goes about in an old suit. The motto of our trade +is Thrift with Taste. It was made up in our spring +convention of five hundred members, in a four day sitting. +We feel it to be (twenty-eight) very appropriate. Our +feeling is that a gentleman wearing one of our thrift +worsteds under one of our Win-the-War light overcoats +(Mr. Jephson, please show that new Win-the-War overcoating) +is really helping to keep things going. We like to reflect, +sir (nothing in shirtings, today?) that we're doing our +bit, too, in presenting to the enemy an undisturbed nation +of well dressed men. Nothing else, sir? The week after +next? Ah! If we can, sir! but we're greatly rushed with +our new and patriotic Thrift orders. Good morning, sir." + + +The just complaint of Madame Pavalucini, the celebrated +contralto. As interviewed incidentally in the palm-room +of The Slitz Hotel, over a cup of tea (one dollar), French +Win-the-War pastry (one fifty) and Help-the-Navy cigarettes +(fifty). + +"I would not want to creetecize ze gouvermen' ah! non! +That would be what you call a skonk treeck, hein?" (Madame +Pavalucini comes from Missouri, and dares not talk any +other kind of English than this, while on tour, with any +strangers listening.) "But, I ask myself, ees it not just +a leetle wrong to discourage and tax ze poor artistes? +We are doing our beet, hein? We seeng, we recite! I seeng +so many beautiful sings to ze soldiers; sings about love, +and youth, and passion, and spring and kisses. And the +men are carried off their feet. They rise. They rush to +the war. I have seen them, in my patriotic concerts where +I accept nothing but my expenses and my fee and give all +that is beyond to the war. Only last night one arose, +right in the front rank--the fauteuils d'orchestre, I do +not know how you call them in English. 'Let me out of +zis,' he scream, 'me for the war! Me for the trenches!' +Was it not magnifique--what you call splendide, hein? + +"And then ze gouvermen' come and tell me I must pay zem +ten thousan' dollars, when I make only seexty thousan' +dollars at ze opera! Anozzer skonk treeck, hein?" + + +The just complaint of Mr. Grunch, income tax payer, as +imparted to me over his own port wine, after dinner. + +"No, I shouldn't want to complain: I mean, in any way +that would reach the outside,--reach it, that is, in +connection with my name. Though I think that the thing +ought to be said by SOMEBODY. I think you might say it. +(Let me pour you out another glass of this Conquistador: +yes, it's the old '87: but I suppose we'll never get any +more of it on this side: they say that the rich Spaniards +are making so much money they're buying up every cask of +it and it will never be exported again. Just another +illustration of the way that the war hits everybody +alike.) But, as I was saying, I think if YOU were to +raise a complaint about the income tax, you'd find the +whole country--I mean all the men with incomes--behind +you. I don't suppose they'd want you to mention their +names. But they'd be BEHIND you, see? They'd all be there. +(Will you try one of these Googoolias? They're the very +best, but I guess we'll never see them again. They say +the rich Cubans are buying them up. So the war hits us +there, too.) As I see it, the income tax is the greatest +mistake the government ever made. It hits the wrong man. +It falls on the man with an income and lets the other +man escape. The way I look at it, and the way all the +men that will be behind you look at it, is that if a man +sticks tight to it and goes on earning all the income he +can, he's doing his bit, in his own way, to win the war. +All we ask is to be let alone (don't put that in your +notes as from me, but you can say it), let us alone to +go on quietly piling up income till we get the Germans +licked. But if you start to take away our income, you +discourage us, you knock all the patriotism out of us. +To my mind, a man's income and his patriotism are the +same thing. But, of course, don't say that I said that." + + +The just complaint of my barber, as expressed in the +pauses of his operations. + +"I'm not saying nothing against the Government (any facial +massage this morning?). I guess they know their own +business, or they'd ought to, anyway. But I kick at all +this talk against the barber business in war time (will +I singe them ends a bit?). The papers are full of it, +all the time. I don't see much else in them. Last week +I saw where a feller said that all the barber shops ought +to be closed up (bay rum?) till the war was over. Say, +I'd like to have him right here in this chair with a +razor at his throat, the way I have you! As I see it, +the barber business is the most necessary business in +the whole war. A man'll get along without everything +else, just about, but he can't get along without a shave, +can he?--or not without losing all the pep and self-respect +that keeps him going. They say them fellers over in France +has to shave every morning by military order: if they +didn't the Germans would have 'em beat. I say the barber +is doing his bit as much as any man. I was to Washington +four months last winter, and I done all the work of three +senators and two congressmen (will I clip that neck?) +and I done the work of a United States Admiral every +Saturday night. If that ain't war work, show me what is. +But I don't kick, I just go along. If a man appreciates +what I do, and likes to pay a little extra for it, why +so much the better, but if he's low enough to get out of +this chair you're in and walk off without giving a cent +more than he has to, why let him go. But, sometimes, when +I get thinking about all this outcry about barber's work +in war time, I feel like following the man to the door +and slitting his throat for him... Thank you, sir; thank +you, sir. Good morning. Next!" + + +The just complaint of Mr. Singlestone;--formerly Mr. +Einstein, Theatre Proprietor. + +"I would be the last man, the very last, to say one word +against the Government. I think they are doing fine. I +think the boys in the trenches are doing fine. I think +the nation is doing fine. But, if there's just one thing +where they're wrong, it's in the matter of the theatres. +I think it would be much better for the Government not +to attempt to cut down or regulate theatres in any way. +The theatre is the people's recreation. It builds them +up. It's all part of a great machine to win the war. I +like to stand in the box office and see the money come +in and feel that the theatre is doing its bit. But, mind +you, I think the President is doing fine. So, all I say +is, I think the theatres ought to be allowed to do fine, +too." + + +The just complaint of Mr. Silas Heck, farmer, as +interviewed by me, incognito, at the counter of the +Gold Dollar Saloon. + +"Yes, sir, I say the Government's in the wrong, and I +don't care who hears me. (Say, is that feller in the +slick overcoat listening? Let's move along a little +further.) They're right to carry on the war for all the +nation is worth. That's sound and I'm with 'em. But they +ought not to take the farmer offen his farm. There I'm +agin them. The farmer is the one man necessary for the +country. They say they want bacon for the Allies. Well, +the way I look at it is, if you want bacon, you need +hogs. And if there are no men left in the country like +me, what'll you do for hogs! + +"Thanks, was you paying for that? I guess we won't have +another, eh? Two of them things might be bad for a feller." + +So, when I used to listen to the complaints of this sort +that rose on every side, I was glad that I was not +President of the United States. + +At the same time I DO think that the Government makes a +mistake in taxing the profits of the poor book writers +under the absurd name of INCOME. But let that go. The +Kaiser would probably treat us worse. + + + + +I.--Some Startling Side Effects of the War + +"There is no doubt," said Mr. Taft recently, "that the +war is destined to effect the most profound uplift and +changes, not only in our political outlook, but upon our +culture, our thought and, most of all, upon our literature." + +I am not absolutely certain that Mr. Taft really said +this. He may not have said "uplift." But I seem to have +heard something about uplift, somewhere. At any rate, +there is no doubt of the fact that our literature has +moved--up or down. Yes, the war is not only destined to +affect our literature, but it has already done so. The +change in outlook, in literary style, in mode of expression, +even in the words themselves is already here. + +Anybody can see it for himself by turning over the pages +of our fashionable novels or by looking at the columns +of our great American and English newspapers and +periodicals. + +But stop,--let me show what I mean by examples. I have +them here in front of me. Take, for example, the London +Spectator. Everybody recognised in it a model of literary +dignity and decorum. Even those who read it least, admitted +this most willingly; in fact, perhaps all the more so. +In its pages to-day one finds an equal dignity of thought, +yet, somehow, the wording seems to have undergone an +alteration. One cannot say just where the change comes +in. It is what the French call a je ne sais quoi, a +something insaisissable, a sort of nuance, not amounting +of course to a lueur, but still,--how shall one put +it,--SOMETHING. + +The example that is given below was taken almost word +for word (indeed some of the words actually were so) from +the very latest copy of The Spectator. + + +EDITORIAL FROM THE LONDON "SPECTATOR" + +Showing the Stimulating Effect of the War on Its +Literary Style + +"There is no doubt that our boys, and the Americans, are +going some on the western front. We have no hesitation +in saying that last week's scrap was a cinch for the +boys. It is credibly reported by our correspondent at +The Hague that the German Emperor, the Crown Prince and +a number of other guys were eye witnesses of the fight. +If so, they got the surprise of their young lives. While +we should not wish to show anything less than the chivalrous +consideration for a beaten enemy which has been a tradition +of our nation, we feel it is but just to say that for +once the dirty pups got what was coming to them. We are +glad to learn from official quarters that His Majesty +King George has been graciously pleased to telegraph to +General Pershing, 'Soak it to 'em--and THEN some.' + +"Meantime the situation from the point of view both of +terrain and of tactics remains altogether in our favour. +The deep salient driven into the German lines near Soissons +threatens to break up their communications and force a +withdrawal on a wide front. We cannot make the position +clearer to our English readers than by saying that our +new lines occupy, as it were, the form of a baseball +diamond, with Soissons at second base and with our +headquarters at the home plate and our artillery support +at third. Our readers will at once grasp the fact that, +with our advance pivoted on the pitcher's box and with +adequate cover at short, the thing is a lead-pipe cinch, +--in fact, we have them lashed to the mast. + +"Meantime the mood of the hour should be one, not of +undue confidence or boastfulness, but of quiet resolution +and deep thankfulness. As the Archbishop of Canterbury +so feelingly put it in his sermon in Westminster Abbey +last Sunday, 'Now that we have them by the neck let us +go on, in deep and steadfast purpose, till we have twisted +the gizzard out of them.' + +"The Archbishop's noble words should, and will, re-echo +in every English home." + +Critical people may be inclined to doubt the propriety, +or even the propinquity, of some of the literary changes +due to the war. But there can be no doubt of the excellent +effect of one of them, namely, the increasing knowledge +and use among us of the pleasant language of France. It +is no exaggeration to say that, before the war, few people +in the United States, even among the colored population, +spoke French with ease. In fact, in some cases the +discomfort was so obvious as to be almost painful. This +is now entirely altered. Thanks to our military guide-books, +and to the general feeling of the day, our citizens are +setting themselves to acquire the language of our gallant +ally. And the signs are that they will do it. One hears +every day in metropolitan society such remarks as, "Have +you read, 'Soo le foo?'" "Oh, you mean that book by +Haingri Barbooze? No, I have not read it yet, but I have +read 'Mong Swassant Quinz' you know, by that other man." + +This is hopeful indeed. Nor need we wonder that our best +magazines are reflecting the same tendency. + +Here for instance are the opening sentences of a very +typical serial now running in one of our best periodicals: +for all I know the rest of the sentences may be like +them. At any rate, any magazine reader will recognize +them at once: + + +BONNE MERE PITOU + +A Conte of Old Normandy + +Bonne Mere Pitou sat spinning beside the porte of the +humble chaumiere in which she dwelt. From time to time +her eyes looked up and down the gran' route that passed +her door. + +"Il ne vient pas," she murmured (he does not come). + +She rose wearily and went dedans. Presently she came out +again, dehors. "Il ne vient toujours pas," she sighed +(he still does not come). + +About her in the tall trees of the allee the percherons +twittered while the soft roucoulement of the bees murmured +drowsily in the tall calice of the chou-fleur. + +"Il n'est pas venu," she said (perfect tense, third +singular, he is not, or has not, come). + +Can we blame him if he didn't? No doubt he was still +studying his active verb before tackling Mere Pitou. + +But there! Let it pass. In any case it is not only the +magazines, but the novels themselves, that are being +transformed by the war. Witness this: + + +BY ONE OF OUR MOST POPULAR NOVELISTS + +"It was in the summer house, at the foot of the old +garden, that the awaited declaration came. Edwin kneeled +at Angelina's feet. At last they were alone! The successful +barrage of conversation which he had put up at breakfast +had compelled her mother to remain in her trenches, and +had driven her father to the shelter of his dug-out. Her +younger brother he had camouflaged with the present of +a new fishing rod, thus inducing him to retire to the +river. The communications with the servants had been cut. +Of the strict neutrality of the gardener he was already +assured. Edwin felt that the moment had come for going +over the top. Yet being an able strategist, he was anxious +not to attempt to advance on too wide a front. + +"Angelina!" he exclaimed, raising himself to one knee +with his hands outstretched toward her. The girl started +as at the sound of an air bomb; for a moment she elevated +her eyes and looked him full in the tangent, then she +lowered them again but continued to observe him through +her mental periscope. + +"Angelina," he repeated, "I have a declaration to make." + +"As from what date?" she questioned quietly. Edwin drew +his watch from his pocket. + +"As from this morning, at ten-forty-six," he said. Then, +emboldened by her passive attitude, he continued with +rising passion in his tone. + +"Ever since I first met you I have felt that I could not +live without you. I am a changed man. My calibre is +altered. I feel ten centimeters wider in the mouth than +I did six weeks ago. I feel that my path is altered. I +have a new range and an angle of elevation such as I +never experienced before. I have hidden my love as best +I could till now. I have worn a moral gas-mask before +your family. I can do so no longer. Angelina, will you +be mine, forming with me a single unit, drawing our +rations from the same field kitchen and occupying the +same divisional headquarters?" + +The girl seemed to hesitate. She raised her eyes to his. + +"We know one another so little," she murmured. + +Edwin felt that his offensive was failing. He therefore +hastened to bring up his means of support. + +"I have an ample income of my own," he pleaded. + +Angelina raised her eyes again. It was evident that she +was about to surrender. But at this moment her mother's +voice was heard calling, "Angelina, Angelina, my dear, +where are you?" + +The barrage had broken down. + +"Quick," said the girl, "mobilize yourself. Pick up that +tennis racket and let us hurry to the court and dig +ourselves in." + +"But my declaration," urged Edwin eagerly. + +"Accepted," she said, "as from eleven-two this morning." + + + + +V.--Other Impossibilities + + +1.--The Art of Conversation + + +I--HOW TO INTRODUCE TWO PEOPLE TO ONE ANOTHER + +Nothing is more important in introducing two people to +each other than to employ a fitting form of words. The +more usually recognized forms are easily learned and +committed to memory and may be utilized as occasion +requires. I pass over such rudimentary formulas as "Ed, +shake hands with Jim Taylor," or, "Boys, this is Pete, +the new hand; Pete, get hold of the end of that cant-hook." +In fact, we are speaking only of polite society as graced +by the fair sex, the only kind that we need care about. + + +The Third Avenue Procedure + +A very neat and convenient form is that in vogue in Third +Avenue circles, New York, as, for instance, at a +fifty-cents-a-head dance (ladies free) in the hall of +the Royal Knights of Benevolence. + +"Miss Summerside, meet Mr. O'Hara," after which Miss +Summerside says very distinctly, "Mr. O'Hara," and Mr. +O'Hara says with equal clearness "Miss Summerside." In +this circle a mark of exquisite breeding is found in the +request to have the name repeated. "I don't quite catch +the name!" says Mr. O'Hara critically; then he catches +it and repeats it--"Miss Summerside." + +"Catching the name" is a necessary part of this social +encounter. If not caught the first time it must be put +over again. The peculiar merit of this introduction is +that it lets Miss Summerside understand clearly that Mr. +O'Hara never heard of her before. That helps to keep her +in her place. + +In superior circles, however, introduction becomes more +elaborate, more flattering, more unctuous. It reaches +its acme in what everyone recognizes at once as + + +The Clerical Method + +This is what would be instinctively used in Anglican +circles--as, for example, by the Episcopal Bishop of Boof +in introducing a Canon of the Church to one of the "lady +workers" of the congregation (meaning a lady too rich to +work) who is expected to endow a crib in the Diocesan +Home for Episcopal Cripples. A certain quantity of soul +has to be infused into this introduction. Anybody who +has ever heard it can fill in the proper accentuation, +which must be very rich and deep. + +"Oh, Mrs. Putitover, MAY I introduce my very dear old +friend, Canon Cutitout? The Canon, Mrs. Putitover, is +one of my DEAREST friends. Mrs. Putitover, my dear Canon, +is quite one of our most enthusiastic workers." + +After which outburst of soul the Bishop is able to add, +"Will you excuse me, I'm afraid I simply MUST run." + +Personally, I have never known or met a Bishop in society +in any other situation than just about to run. Where they +run to, I do not know. But I think I understand what they +run from. + + +The Lounge Room of the Club + +Equally high in the social scale but done quite differently +is the Club Introduction. It is done by a club man who, +for the life of him, can't remember the names of either +of the two club men whom he is introducing, and who each, +for the life of him, can't think of the name of the man +they are being introduced by. It runs-- + +"Oh, I say, I beg your pardon--I thought, of course, you +two fellows knew one another perfectly well--let me +introduce--urr----wurr----" + +Later on, after three whiskey-and-sodas, each of the +three finds out the names of the other two, surreptitiously +from the hall porter. But it makes no difference. They +forget them again anyway. Now let us move up higher, in +fact, very high. Let us approach the real thing. + + +Introduction to H.E. the Viceroy of India, K.C.B., +K.C.S.I., S.O.S. + +The most exalted form of introduction is seen in the +presentation of Mr. Tomkins, American tourist, to H.E. +the Viceroy of India. An aide-de-camp in uniform at the +foot of a grand staircase shouts, "Mr. Tomkins!" An +aide-de-camp at the top (one minute later) calls "Mr. +Thompson"; another aide, four feet further on, calls "Mr. +Torps." + +Then a military secretary, standing close to His Excellency, +takes Mr. Tomkins by the neck and bends him down toward +the floor and says very clearly and distinctly, "Mr. +Torpentine." Then he throws him out by the neck into the +crowd beyond and calls for another. The thing is done. +Mr. Tomkins wipes the perspiration from his hair with +his handkerchief and goes back at full speed to the Hoogli +Hotel, Calcutta, eager for stationery to write at once +to Ohio and say that he knows the Viceroy. + + +The Office Introduction, One-sided + +This introduction comes into our office, slipping past +whoever keeps the door with a packet of books under its +arm. It says-- + +"Ledd me introduze myself. The book proposition vidge I +am introduzing is one vidge ve are now pudding on the +market..." + +Then, of two things, one-- + +Either a crash of glass is heard as the speaker is hurled +through the skylight, or he walks out twenty minutes +later, bowing profusely as he goes, and leaving us gazing +in remorse at a signed document entitling us to receive +the "Masterpieces of American Poetry" in sixty volumes. + + +On the Stage + +Everything on the stage is done far better than in real +life. This is true of introductions. There is a warmth, +a soul, in the stage introduction not known in the chilly +atmosphere of everyday society. Let me quote as an example +of a stage introduction the formula used, in the best +melodramatic art, in the kitchen-living-room (stove right +centre) of the New England farm. + +"Neighbour Jephson's son, this is my little gal, as good +and sweet a little gal, as mindful of her old father, as +you'll find in all New England. Neighbour Jephson's son, +she's been my all in all to me, this little gal, since +I laid her mother in the ground five Christmases ago--" +The speaker is slightly overcome and leans against a +cardboard clock for strength: he recovers and goes +on--"Hope, this is Neighbour Jephson's son, new back from +over the seas, as fine a lad, gal, if he's like the folk +that went before him, as ever followed the sea. Hope, +your hand. My boy, your hand. See to his comfort, Hope, +while I go and read the Good Book a spell in the barnyard." + + +The Indian Formula + +Many people, tired of the empty phrases of society, look +back wistfully to the simple direct speech of savage +life. Such persons will find useful the usual form of +introduction (the shorter form) prevalent among our North +American Indians (at least as gathered from the best +literary model): + + "Friends and comrades who are worthy, + See and look with all your eyesight, + Listen with your sense of hearing, + Gather with your apprehension-- + Bow your heads, O trees, and hearken. + Hush thy rustling, corn, and listen; + Turn thine ear and give attention; + Ripples of the running water, + Pause a moment in your channels-- + Here I bring you,--Hiawatha." + +The last line of this can be changed to suit the particular +case. It can just as easily read, at the end, "Here is +Henry Edward Eastwood," or, "Here is Hal McGiverin, +Junior," or anything else. All names fit the sense. That, +in fact, was the wonderful art of Longfellow--the sense +being independent of the words. + + +The Platform Introduction + +Here is a form of introduction cruelly familiar to those +who know it. It is used by the sour-looking villain +facetiously called in newspaper reports the "genial +chairman" of the meeting. While he is saying it the victim +in his little chair on the platform is a target for the +eyes of a thousand people who are wondering why he wears +odd socks. + +"The next speaker, ladies and gentlemen, is one who needs +no introduction to this gathering. His name" (here the +chairman consults a little card) "is one that has become +a household word. His achievements in" (here the chairman +looks at his card again, studies it, turns it upside down +and adds) "in many directions are familiar to all of +you." There is a feeble attempt at applause and the +chairman then lifts his hand and says in a plain +business-like tone--"Will those of the audience who are +leaving kindly step as lightly as possible." He is about +to sit down, but then adds as a pleasant afterthought +for the speaker to brood over--"I may say, while I am on +my feet, that next week our society is to have a REAL +treat in hearing--et cetera and so forth--" + + + + +II--HOW TO OPEN A CONVERSATION + +After the ceremony of introduction is completed the next +thing to consider is the proper way to open a conversation. +The beginning of conversation is really the hardest part. +It is the social equivalent to "going over the top." It +may best be studied in the setting and surroundings of +the Evening Reception, where people stand upright and +agonise, balancing a dish of ice-cream. Here conversation +reaches its highest pitch of social importance. One must +talk or die. Something may be done to stave it off a +little by vigorous eating. But the food at such affairs +is limited. There comes a point when it is absolutely +necessary to say something. + +The beginning, as I say, is the hardest problem. Other +communities solve it better than we do. + + +The Chinese System + +In China conversation, between strangers after introduction, +is always opened by the question, "And how old are YOU?" +This strikes me as singularly apt and sensible. Here is +the one thing that is common ground between any two +people, high or low, rich or poor--how far are you on +your pilgrimage in life? + + +The Penetentiary Method + +Compare with the Chinese method the grim, but very +significant formula that is employed (I believe it is a +literal fact) in the exercise yards of the American +penitentiaries. "What have YOU brought?" asks the San +Quentin or Sing Sing convict of the new arrival, meaning, +"And how long is your sentence?" There is the same human +touch about this, the same common ground of interest, as +in the Chinese formula. + + +Polite Society + +But in our polite society we have as yet found no better +method than beginning with a sort of medical diagnosis--"How +do you do?" This admits of no answer. Convention forbids +us to reply in detail that we are feeling if anything +slightly lower than last week, but that though our +temperature has risen from ninety-one-fifty to +ninety-one-seventy-five, our respiration is still normal. + +Still worse is the weather as an opening topic. For it +either begins and ends as abruptly as the medical diagnosis, +or it leads the two talkers on into a long and miserable +discussion of the weather of yesterday, of the day before +yesterday, of last month, of last year and the last fifty +years. + +Let one beware, however, of a conversation that begins +too easily. + + +The Mutual Friends' Opening + +This can be seen at any evening reception, as when the +hostess introduces two people who are supposed to have +some special link to unite them at once with an +instantaneous snap, as when, for instance, they both come +from the same town. + +"Let me introduce Mr. Sedley," said the hostess. "I think +you and Mr. Sedley are from the same town, Miss Smiles. +Miss Smiles, Mr. Sedley." + +Off they go at a gallop. "I'm so delighted to meet you," +says Mr. Sedley. "It's good to hear from anybody who +comes from our little town." (If he's a rollicking +humourist, Mr. Sedley calls it his little old "burg.") + +"Oh, yes," answers Miss Smiles. "I'm from Winnipeg too. +I was so anxious to meet you to ask if you knew the +McGowans. They're my greatest friends at home." + +"The--who?" asks Mr. Sedley. + +"The McGowans--on Selkirk Avenue." + +"No-o, I don't think I do. I know the Prices on Selkirk +Avenue. Of course you know them." + +"The Prices? No, I don't believe I do--I don't think I +ever heard of the Prices. You don't mean the Pearsons? +I know them very well." + +"No, I don't know the Pearsons. The Prices live just near +the reservoir." + +"No, then I'm sure I don't know them. The Pearsons live +close to the college." + +"Close to the College? Is it near the William Kennedys?" + +"I don't think I know the William Kennedys." + +This is the way the conversation goes on for ten minutes. +Both Mr. Sedley and Miss Smiles are getting desperate. +Their faces are fixed. Their sentences are reduced to-- + +"Do you know the Petersons?" + +"No. Do you know the Appleby's?" + +"No. Do you know the Willie Johnsons?" + +"No." + +Then at last comes a rift in the clouds. One of them +happens to mention Beverley Dixon. The other is able to +cry exultingly-- + +"Beverley Dixon? Oh, yes, rather. At least, I don't KNOW +him, but I used often to hear the Applebys speak of him." + +And the other exclaims with equal delight-- + +"I don't know him very well either, but I used to hear +the Willie Johnsons talk about him all the time." + +They are saved. + +Half an hour after they are still standing there talking +of Beverly Dixon. + + +The Etiquette Book + +Personally I have suffered so much from inability to +begin a conversation that not long ago I took the extreme +step of buying a book on the subject. I regret to say +that I got but little light or help from it. It was +written by the Comtesse de Z--. According to the preface +the Comtesse had "moved in the highest circles of all +the European capitals." If so, let her go on moving there. +I for one, after trying her book, shall never stop her. +This is how the Comtesse solves the problem of opening +a conversation: + +"In commencing a conversation, the greatest care should +be devoted to the selection of a topic, good taste +demanding that one should sedulously avoid any subject +of which one's vis-a-vis may be in ignorance. Nor are +the mere words alone to be considered. In the art of +conversation much depends upon manner. The true +conversationalist must, in opening, invest himself with +an atmosphere of interest and solicitude. He must, as we +say in French, be prepared to payer les rais de la +conversation. In short, he must 'give himself an air.'" + +There! Go and do it if you can. I admit that I can't. I +have no idea what the French phrase above means, but I +know that personally I cannot "invest myself with an +atmosphere of interest." I might manage about two per +cent on five hundred dollars. But what is that in these +days of plutocracy? + +At any rate I tried the Comtesse's directions at a +reception last week, on being introduced to an unknown +lady. And they failed. I cut out nearly all the last +part, and confined myself merely to the proposed selection +of a topic, endeavouring to pick it with as much care as +if I were selecting a golf club out of a bag. Naturally +I had to confine myself to the few topics that I know +about, and on which I can be quite interesting if I get +started. + +"Do you know any mathematics?" I asked. + +"No," said the lady. + +This was too bad. I could have shown her some good puzzles +about the squares of the prime numbers up to forty-one. + +I paused and gave myself more air. + +"How are you," I asked, "on hydrostatics?" + +"I beg your pardon," she said. Evidently she was ignorant +again. + +"Have you ever studied the principles of aerial navigation?" +I asked. + +"No," She answered. + +I was pausing again and trying to invest myself with an +air of further interest, when another man was introduced +to her, quite evidently, from his appearance, a vapid +jackass without one tenth of the brain calibre that I +have. + +"Oh, how do you do?" he said. "I say, I've just heard +that Harvard beat Princeton this afternoon. Great, isn't it?" + +In two minutes they were talking like old friends. How +do these silly asses do it? + + +When Dressed Hogs are Dull + +An equally unsuccessful type of conversation, often +overheard at receptions, is where one of the two parties +to it is too surly, too stupid, or too self-important +and too rich to talk, and the other labours in vain. + +The surly one is, let us say, a middle-aged, thick-set +man of the type that anybody recognizes under the name +Money Hog. This kind of person, as viewed standing in +his dress suit, mannerless and stupid, too rich to have +to talk and too dull to know how to, always recalls to +my mind the head-line of the market reports in the +newspapers, "Dressed Hogs are Dull." + +The other party to the conversation is a winsome and +agreeable woman, trying her best to do her social duty. + +But, tenez, as the Comtesse of Z---- would say, I can +exactly illustrate the position and attitude of the two +of them from a recollection of my childhood. I remember +that in one of my nursery books of forty years ago there +was a picture entitled "The Lady in Love With A Swine." +A willowy lady in a shimmering gown leaned over the rail +of a tessellated pig-sty, in which an impossibly clean +hog stood in an attitude of ill-mannered immobility. With +the picture was the rhyming legend, + + There was a Lady in love with a swine, + "Honey," said she, "will you be mine? + I'll build you a silver sty + And in it you shall lie." + "Honk!" said He. + +There was something, as I recall it, in the sweet +willingness of the Lady that was singularly appealing, +and contrasted with the dull mannerless passivity of the +swine. + +In each of the little stanzas that followed, the pretty +advances of the Lady were rebuffed by a surly and +monosyllabic "honk" from the hog. + +Here is the social counterpart of the scene in the +picture-book. Mr. Grunt, capitalist, is standing in his +tessellated sty,--the tessellated sty being represented +by the hardwood floor of a fashionable drawing-room. His +face is just the same as the face of the pig in the +picture-book. The willowy lady, in the same shimmering +clothes and with the same pretty expression of eagerness, +is beside him. + +"Oh, Mr. Grunt," she is saying, "how interesting it must +be to be in your place and feel such tremendous power. +Our hostess was just telling me that you own practically +all the shoemaking machinery factories--it IS shoe-making +machinery, isn't it?--east of Pennsylvania." + +"Honk!" says Mr. Grunt. + +"Shoe-making machinery," goes on the willowy lady (she +really knows nothing and cares less about it) "must be +absolutely fascinating, is it not?" + +"Honk!" says Mr. Grunt. + +"But still you must find it sometimes a dreadful strain, +do you not? I mean, so much brain work, and that sort of +thing." + +"Honk!" says Mr. Grunt. + +"I should love so much to see one of your factories. They +must be so interesting." + +"Honk!" says Mr. Grunt. Then he turns and moves away +sideways. Into his little piggy eyes has come a fear that +the lady is going to ask him to subscribe to something, +or wants a block of his common stock, or his name on a +board of directors. So he leaves her. Yet if he had known +it she is probably as rich as he is, or richer, and hasn't +the faintest interest in his factories, and never intends +to go near one. Only she is fit to move and converse in +polite society and Mr. Grunt is not. + + + + +2.--Heroes and Heroines + +"What are you reading?" I asked the other day of a blue-eyed +boy of ten curled up among the sofa cushions. + +He held out the book for me to see. + +"Dauntless Ned among the Cannibals," he answered. + +"Is it exciting?" I enquired. + +"Not very," said the child in a matter-of-fact tone. "But +it's not bad." + +I took the book from him and read aloud at the opened page. + +"In a compact mass the gigantic savages rushed upon our +hero, shrieking with rage and brandishing their huge +clubs. Ned stood his ground fearlessly, his back to a +banana tree. With a sweep of his cutlass he severed the +head of the leading savage from his body, while with a +back stroke of his dirk he stabbed another to the heart. +But resistance against such odds was vain. By sheer weight +of numbers, Ned was borne to the ground. His arms were +then pinioned with stout ropes made of the fibres of the +boobooda tree. With shrieks of exultation the savages +dragged our hero to an opening in the woods where a huge +fire was burning, over which was suspended an enormous +caldron of bubbling oil. 'Boil him, boil him,' yelled +the savages, now wrought to the point of frenzy." + +"That seems fairly exciting, isn't it?" I said. + +"Oh, he won't get boiled," said the little boy. "He's +the hero." + +So I knew that the child has already taken his first +steps in the disillusionment of fiction. + +Of course he was quite right as to Ned. This wonderful +youth, the hero with whom we all begin an acquaintance +with books, passes unhurt through a thousand perils. +Cannibals, Apache Indians, war, battles, shipwrecks, +leave him quite unscathed. At the most Ned gets a flesh +wound which is healed, in exactly one paragraph, by that +wonderful drug called a "simple." + +But the most amazing thing about this particular hero, +the boy Ned, is the way in which he turns up in all the +great battles and leading events of the world. + +It was Ned, for example, who at the critical moment at +Gettysburg turned in his saddle to General Meade and said +quietly, "General, the day is ours." "If it is," answered +Meade, as he folded his field glass, "you alone, Ned, +have saved it." + +In the same way Ned was present at the crossing of the +Delaware with Washington. Thus:-- + +"'What do you see, Ned?' said Washington, as they peered +from the leading boat into the driving snow. + +"'Ice,' said Ned. 'My boy,' said the Great American +General, and a tear froze upon his face as he spoke, 'you +have saved us all.'" + +Here is Ned at Runningmede when King John with his pen +in hand was about to sign the Magna Carta. + +"For a moment the King paused irresolute, the uplifted +quill in his hand, while his crafty, furtive eyes indicated +that he might yet break his plighted faith with the +assembled barons. + +"Ned laid his mailed hand upon the parchment. + +"'Sign it,' he said sternly, 'or take the consequences.' + +"The King signed. + +"'Ned,' said the Baron de Bohun, as he removed his iron +vizor from his bronze face, 'thou hast this day saved +all England.'" + +In the stories of our boyhood in which Ned figured, there +was no such thing as a heroine, or practically none. At +best she was brought in as an afterthought. It was +announced on page three hundred and one that at the close +of Ned's desperate adventures in the West Indies he +married the beautiful daughter of Don Diego, the Spanish +governor of Portobello; or else, at the end of the great +war with Napoleon, that he married a beautiful and +accomplished French girl whose parents had perished in +the Revolution. + +Ned generally married away from home. In fact his marriages +were intended to cement the nations, torn asunder by +Ned's military career. But sometimes he returned to his +native town, all sunburned, scarred and bronzed from +battle (the bronzing effect of being in battle is always +noted): he had changed from a boy to a man: that is, from +a boy of fifteen to a man of sixteen. In such a case Ned +marries in his own home town. It is done after this +fashion: + +"But who is this who advances smiling to greet him as he +crosses the familiar threshold of the dear old house? +Can this tall, beautiful girl be Gwendoline, the +child-playmate of his boyhood?" + +Well, can it? I ask it of every experienced reader--can +it or can it not? + +Ned had his day, in the boyhood of each of us. We presently +passed him by. I am speaking, of course, of those of us +who are of maturer years and can look back upon thirty +or forty years of fiction reading. "Ned," flourishes +still, I understand, among the children of today. But +now he flies in aeroplanes, and dives in submarines, and +gives his invaluable military advice to General Joffre +and General Pershing. + +But with the oncoming of adolescent years something softer +was needed than Ned with his howling cannibals and his +fusillade of revolver shots. + +So the "Ned" of the Adventure Books was supplanted by +the Romantic Heroine of the Victorian Age and the +Long-winded Immaculate who accompanied her as the Hero. + +I do not know when these two first opened their twin +career. Whether Fenimore Cooper or Walter Scott began +them, I cannot say. But they had an undisputed run on +two continents for half a century. + +This Heroine was a sylph. Her chiefest charm lay in her +physical feebleness. She was generally presented to us +in some such words as these: + +"Let us now introduce to our readers the fair Madeline +of Rokewood. Slender and graceful and of a form so fragile +that her frame scarce fitted to fulfil its bodily +functions...she appeared rather as one of those ethereal +beings of the air who might visit for a brief moment this +terrestrial scene, than one of its earthly inhabitants. +Her large, wondering eyes looked upon the beholder in +childlike innocence." + +Sounds simple, doesn't it? One might suspect there was +something wrong with the girl's brain. But listen to +this:-- + +"The mind of Madeline, elegantly formed by the devoted +labours of the venerable Abbe, her tutor, was of a degree +of culture rarely found in one so young. Though scarce +eighteen summers had flown over her head at the time when +we introduce her to our readers, she was intimately +conversant with the French, Italian, Spanish, and Provencal +tongues. The abundant pages of history, both ancient and +modern, sacred and profane, had been opened for her by +her devoted instructor. In music she played with exquisite +grace and accuracy upon both the spinet and the harpsichord, +while her voice, though lacking something in compass, +was sweet and melodious to a degree." + +From such a list of accomplishments it is clear that +Madeline could have matriculated, even at the Harvard +Law School, with five minutes preparation. Is it any +wonder that there was a wild rush for Madeline? In fact, +right after the opening description of the Heroine, there +follows an ominous sentence such as this:-- + +"It was this exquisite being whose person Lord Rip de +Viperous, a man whose reputation had shamed even the most +licentious court of the age, and had led to his banishment +from the presence of the king, had sworn to get within +his power." + +Personally I don't blame Lord Rip a particle; it must +have been very rough on him to have been banished from +the presence of the king--enough to inflame a man to do +anything. + +With two such characters in the story, the scene was set +and the plot and adventures followed as a matter of +course. Lord Rip de Viperous pursued the Heroine. But at +every step he is frustrated. He decoys Madeline to a +ruined tower at midnight, her innocence being such and +the gaps left in her education by the Abbe being so wide, +that she is unaware of the danger of ruined towers after +ten thirty P.M. In fact, "tempted by the exquisite clarity +and fulness of the moon, which magnificent orb at this +season spread its widest effulgence over all nature, she +accepts the invitation of her would-be-betrayer to gather +upon the battlements of the ruined keep the strawberries +which grew there in wild profusion." + +But at the critical moment, Lord de Viperous is balked. +At the very instant when he is about to seize her in his +arms, Madeline turns upon him and says in such icy tones, +"Titled villain that you are, unhand me," that the man +is "cowed." He slinks down the ruined stairway "cowed." +And at every later turn, at each renewed attempt, Madeline +"cows" him in like fashion. + +Moreover while Lord de Viperous is being thus cowed by +Madeline the Heroine, he is also being "dogged" by the +Hero. This counterpart of Madeline who shared her popularity +for fifty years can best be described as the Long-winded +Immaculate Hero. Entirely blameless in his morals, and +utterly virtuous in his conduct, he possessed at least +one means of defending himself. He could make speeches. +This he did on all occasions. With these speeches he +"dogged" Lord de Viperous. Here is the style of them:-- + +"'My Lord,' said Markham..." (incidentally let it be +explained that this particular brand of hero was always +known by his surname and his surname was always Markham) +--"'My lord, the sentiments that you express and the +demeanour which you have evinced are so greatly at variance +with the title that you bear and the lineage of which +you spring that no authority that you can exercise and +no threats that you are able to command shall deter me +from expressing that for which, however poor and inadequate +my powers of speech, all these of whom and for what I am +what I am, shall answer to it for the integrity of that, +which, whether or not, is at least as it is. My lord, I +have done. Or shall I speak more plainly still?'" + +Is it to be wondered that after this harangue Lord Rip +sank into a chair, a hideous convulsion upon his face, +murmuring--"It is enough." + +But successful as they were as Hero and Heroine, Markham +and Madeline presently passed off the scene. Where they +went to, I do not know. Perhaps Markham got elected in +the legislature of Massachusetts. At any rate they +disappeared from fiction. + +There followed in place of Madeline, the athletic sunburned +heroine with the tennis racket. She was generally called +Kate Middleton, or some such plain, straightforward +designation. She wore strong walking boots and leather +leggings. She ate beef steak. She shot with a rifle. For +a while this Boots and Beef Heroine (of the middle +nineties) made a tremendous hit. She climbed crags in +the Rockies. She threw steers in Colorado with a lariat. +She came out strong in sea scenes and shipwrecks, and on +sinking steamers, where she "cowed" the trembling stewards +and "dogged" the mutinous sailors in the same fashion +that Madeline used to "cow" and "dog" Lord Rip de Viperous. + +With the Boots and Beef Heroine went as her running mate +the out-of-doors man, whose face had been tanned and +whose muscles had been hardened into tempered steel in +wild rides over the Pampas of Patagonia, and who had +learned every art and craft of savage life by living +among the wild Hoodoos of the Himalayas. This +Air-and-Grass-man, as he may be called, is generally +supposed to write the story... He was "I" all through. +And he had an irritating modesty in speaking of his own +prowess. Instead of saying straight out that he was the +strongest and bravest man in the world, he implied it +indirectly on every page. + +Here, for example, is a typical scene in which "I" and +Kate figure in a desperate adventure in the Rocky Mountains, +pursued by Indians. + +"We are about to descend on a single cord from the summit +of a lofty crag, our sole chance of escape (and a +frightfully small chance at that) from the roving band +of Apaches. + +"With my eye I measured the fearsome descent below us. + +"'Hold fast to the line, Miss Middleton,' I said as I +set my foot against a projecting rock. (Please note that +the Air-and-Grass Hero in these stories always calls the +Heroine Miss Middleton right up to the very end.) + +"The noble girl seized the knotted end of the buckskin +line. 'All right, Mr. Smith,' she said with quiet +confidence. + +"I braced myself for the effort. My muscles like tempered +steel responded to the strain. I lowered a hundred fathoms +of the line. I could already hear the voice of Kate far +down the cliff. + +"Don't let go the line, Miss Middleton,' I called. (Here +was an excellent piece of advice.) + +"The girl's clear voice floated up to me... 'All right, +Mr. Smith,' she called, 'I won't.'" + +Of course they landed safely at the foot of the cliff, +after the manner of all heroes and heroines. And here +it is that Kate in her turn comes out strong, at the +evening encampment, frying bacon over a blazing fire of +pine branches, while the firelight illuminates her leather +leggings and her rough but picturesque costume. + +The circumstances might seem a little daring and improper. +But the reader knows that it is all right, because the +hero and heroine always call one another Miss Middleton +and Mr. Smith. + +Not till right at the end, when they are just getting +back again to the confines of civilization, do they depart +from this. + +Here is the scene that happens... The hero and heroine +are on the platform of the way-side depot where they are +to part... Kate to return to the luxurious home of her +aunt, Mrs. van der Kyper of New York, and the Air-and-Grass +Man to start for the pampas of Patagonia to hunt the +hoopoo. The Air-and-Grass Man is about to say goodbye. +Then... "'Kate,' I said, as I held the noble girl's gloved +hand in mine a moment. She looked me in the face with +the full, frank, fearless gaze of a sister. + +"'Yes?' she answered. + +"'Kate,' I repeated, 'do you know what I was thinking of +when I held the line while you were half way down the +cliff?' + +"'No,' she murmured, while a flush suffused her cheek. + +"'I was thinking, Kate,' I said, 'that if the rope broke +I should be very sorry.' + +"'Edward!' she exclaimed. + +"I clasped her in my arms. + +"'Shall I make a confession,' said Kate, looking up +timidly, half an hour later, as I tenderly unclasped the +noble girl from my encircling arms, ...'I was thinking +the same thing too.'" + +So Kate and Edward had their day and then, as Tennyson +says, they "passed," or as less cultivated people put +it, "they were passed up in the air." + +As the years went by they failed to please. Kate was a +great improvement upon Madeline. But she wouldn't do. +The truth was, if one may state it openly, Kate wasn't +TOUGH enough. In fact she wasn't tough at all. She turned +out to be in reality just as proper and just as virtuous +as Madeline. + +So, too, with the Air-and-Grass Hero. For all of his +tempered muscles and his lariat and his Winchester rifle, +he was presently exposed as a fraud. He was just as +Long-winded and just as Immaculate as the Victorian Hero +that he displaced. + +What the public really wants and has always wanted in +its books is wickedness. Fiction was recognised in its +infancy as being a work of the devil. + +So the popular novel, despairing of real wickedness among +the cannibals, and in the ruined tower at midnight, and +on the open-air of the prairies, shifted its scenes again. +It came indoors. It came back to the city. And it gave +us the new crop of heroes and heroines and the scenes +and settings with which the fiction of to-day has replaced +the Heroes and Heroines of Yesterday. The Lure of the +City is its theme. It pursues its course to the music of +the ukalele, in the strident racket of the midnight +cabaret. Here move the Harvard graduate in his dinner +jacket, drunk at one in the morning. Here is the hard +face of Big Business scowling at its desk; and here the +glittering Heroine of the hour in her dress of shimmering +sequins, making such tepid creatures as Madeline and Kate +look like the small change out of a twenty-five cent +shinplaster. + + + + +3.--The Discovery of America; + Being Done into Moving Pictures and Out Again + +"No greater power for education," said President Shurman +the other day, "has come among us during the last forty +years than the moving picture." + +I am not certain that it was President Shurman. And he +may not have said it the other day. Nor do I feel absolutely +sure that he referred to the LAST forty years. Indeed +now that I come to think of it, I don't believe it WAS +Shurman. In fact it may have been ex-President Eliot. Or +was it, perhaps, President Hadley of Yale? Or did I say +it myself? Judging by the accuracy and force of the +language, I think I must have. I doubt if Shurman or +Hadley could have put it quite so neatly. There's a touch +about it that I recognise. + +But let that pass. At any rate it is something that +everybody is saying and thinking. All our educators have +turned their brains towards the possibility of utilising +moving pictures for the purpose of education. It is being +freely said that history and geography, and even arithmetic, +instead of being taught by the slow and painful process +of books and memory, can be imparted through the eye. + +I had no sooner heard of this idea than I became impassioned +to put it into practice. I have therefore prepared, or +am preparing, a film, especially designed for the elementary +classes of our schools to narrate the story of the +discovery of America. + +This I should like the reader to sit and see with me, in +the eye of his imagination. But let me first give the +plain, unvarnished account of the discovery of America +as I took it from one of our school histories. + + "Christopher Columbus, otherwise Christoforo Colombo, + the celebrated discoverer of America, was born of poor + but honest parents in the Italian city of Genoa. His + mother, Teresa Colombo, seems to have been a woman of + great piety and intelligence. Of his father, Bartolomeo + Colombo, nothing is recorded. From his earliest youth + the boy Christopher developed a passion for mathematics, + astronomy, geodesy, and the other sciences of the + day..." + +But, no,--stop! I am going too fast. The reader will get +it better if we turn it into pictures bit by bit as we +go on. Let the reader therefore imagine himself seated +before the curtain in the lighted theatre. All ready? +Very good. Let the music begin--Star Spangled Banner, +please--flip off the lights. Now then. + +DISCOVERY OF AMERICA +AUTHORIZED +BY THE BOARD OF CENSORS OF +NEW YORK STATE + +There we are. That gives the child the correct historical +background right away. Now what goes on next? Let me see. +Ah, yes, of course. We throw an announcement on the +screen, thus. + +CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.. Mr. Quinn + +Here the face of Mr. Quinn (in a bowler hat) is thrown +on the screen and fades out again. + +We follow him up with + +SPIRIT OF AMERICA.. Miss E. Dickenson + +Now, we are ready to begin in earnest. Let us make the +scenario together. First idea to be expressed: + +"Christopher Columbus was the son of poor but honest parents." + +This might seem difficult to a beginner, but to those of +us who frequent the movies it is nothing. The reel spins +and we see--a narrow room--(it is always narrow in the +movies)--to indicate straitened circumstances--cardboard +furniture--high chairs with carved backs--two cardboard +beams across the ceiling (all this means the Middle +Ages)--a long dinner table--all the little Columbuses +seated at it--Teresa Colombo cutting bread at one end of +it--gives a slice to each, one slice (that means poverty +in the movies)--Teresa rolls her eyes up--all the little +children put their hands together and say grace (this +registers honesty). The thing is done. Let us turn back +to the history book and see what is to be put in next. + +"...The father of Christopher, Bartolomeo Colombo, was +a man of no especial talent of whom nothing is recorded." + +That's easy. First we announce him on the screen: + +BARTOLOMEO COLOMBO.. Mr. Henderson + +Then we stick him on the film on a corner of the room, +leaning up against the cardboard clock and looking at +the children. This attitude in the movies always indicates +a secondary character of no importance. His business is +to look at the others and to indicate forgetfulness of +self, incompetence, unimportance, vacuity, simplicity. +Note how this differs from the attitudes of important +characters. If a movie character--one of importance--is +plotting or scheming, he seats himself at a little round +table, drums on it with his fingers, and half closes one +eye. If he is being talked to, or having a letter or +document or telegram read to him, he stands "facing full" +and working his features up and down to indicate emotion +sweeping over them. If he is being "exposed" (which is +done by pointing fingers at him), he hunches up like a +snake in an angle of the room with both eyes half shut +and his mouth set as if he had just eaten a lemon. But +if he has none of these things to express and is only in +the scene as a background for the others, then he goes +over and leans in an easy attitude against the tall +cardboard clock. + +That then is the place for Bartolomeo Colombo. To the +clock with him. + +Now what comes next? + +"...The young Christopher developed at an early age a +passion for study, and especially for astronomy, geometry, +geodesy, and the exact science of the day." + +Quite easy. On spins the film. Young Christopher in a +garret room (all movie study is done in garrets). The +cardboard ceiling slopes within six inches of his head. +This shows that the boy never rises from his books. He +can't. On a table in front of him is a little globe and +a pair of compasses. Christopher spins the globe round. +Then he makes two circles with the compasses, one after +the other, very carefully. This is the recognised movie +symbol for mathematical research. + +So there we have Christopher--poor, honest, studious, +full of circles. + +Now to the book again. + +"...The young Columbus received his education at the +monastery of the Franciscan monks at Genoa. Here he spent +seven years." + +Yes, but we can put that on the screen in seven seconds. + +Turn on the film. + +Movie Monastery--exterior, done in grey cardboard--ding, +dong, ding, dong (man in the orchestra with triangle and +stick)--procession of movie friars--faces more like thugs, +but never mind--they are friars because they walk two +and two in a procession, singing out of hymn books. + +Now for the book again. + +"...Fra Giacomo, the prior of the monastery, delighted +with the boy's progress, encourages his studies." + +Wait a minute. + +FRA GIACOMO... Mr. Edward Sims + +Mr. Sims's face, clean-shaved under a round hat fades in and out. +Then the picture goes on. Movie monastery interior--young +Christopher, still at a table with compasses--benevolent friar +bending over him--Christopher turns the compasses and looks up +with a what-do-you-know-about-that look--astonishment and delight +of friar (registered by opening his eyes like a bull frog). All +this shows study, progress, application. The friars are delighted +with the boy. + +"...Christopher, after seven years of study, reaches the +firm conviction that the world is round." + +Picture. Christopher--with his globe--jumps up from +table--passes his fingers round and round the +globe--registers the joy of invention--seats himself at +table and draws circles with his compasses furiously. He +fades out. + +"...Fired with his discovery Christopher sets out from +the monastery." + +Stop a minute, this is a little hard. Fired. How can we +show Christopher "fired." We can't. Perhaps he'll be +fired if the film is no good, but we must omit it just +now. + +"He sets out." + +One second only for this. Monastery door (double cardboard +with iron across it)--Christopher leaving--carries a +wallet to mean distance. Fra Giacomo blessing him--fade +out. + +"...For eighteen years Columbus vainly travelled through +the world on foot offering his discovery at the courts +of Europe, in vain, though asking nothing in return for +it except a fleet of ships, two hundred men and provisions +for two years." + +To anybody not used to scenarios this looks a large order. +Eighteen years seems difficult to put on the screen. In +reality this is exactly where the trained movie man sees +his chance. Here he can put in anything and everything +that he likes, bringing in, in a slightly mediaeval form, +all his favourite movie scenes. + +Thus, for example, here we have first the good old midnight +cabaret supper scene--thinly disguised as the court of +the King of Sardinia. To turn a cabaret into a court the +movie men merely exchange their Fifth Avenue evening +dress for short coats and knee breeches, heavily wadded +and quilted, and wear large wigs. Quilted pants and wigs +register courtiers, the courtiers of anybody--Charlemagne, +Queen Elizabeth, Peter the Great, Louis Quatorze, anybody +and everybody who ever had courtiers. Just as men with +bare legs mean Romans, men in pea-jackets mean detectives, +and young men drunk in evening dress Harvard graduates. + +The ladies at the court of Sardinia wear huge paper frills +round their necks. Otherwise it is the cabaret scene with +the familiar little tables, and the ukaleles going like +mad in one corner, and black sarsaparilla being poured +foaming into the glasses. + +In this scene Columbus moves up and down, twirling his +little globe and looking appealingly in their faces. All +laugh at him. His part is just the same as that of the +poor little girl trying to sell up-state violets in the +midnight cabaret. + +The Court of Sardinia fades and the film shows Columbus +vainly soliciting financial aid from Lorenzo the +Magnificent. + +Stop one minute, please. + +LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT... Mr. L. Evans + +This scene again is old and familiar. It is the well-known +interior representing the Grinding Capitalist, or the +Bitter Banker refusing aid to the boy genius who has +invented a patent pea-rake. The only change is that +Lorenzo wears a huge wig, has no telephone, and handles +a large quill pen (to register Middle Ages) which he +wiggles furiously up and down on a piece of parchment. + +So the eighteen years, with scenes of this sort turn out +the easiest part of the whole show. + +But let us to the book again. + +"...After eighteen years Columbus, now past the prime of +life, is presented at the Court of Queen Isabella of +Spain." + +Just half a moment. + +QUEEN ISABELLA.. Miss Janet Briggs + +There will be very probably at this point a slight applause +from the back of the hall. Miss Briggs was here last +week, or her astral body was--as Maggie of the Cattle +Ranges. The impression that she made is passed on to +Isabella. + +"The Queen and her consort, King Ferdinand of Aragon..." + +Stop, stick him on the film. + +FERDINAND OF ARAGON.. Mr. Edward Giles + +(Large wig, flat velvet cap and square whiskers--same +make-up as for Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Ferdinand of Bohemia, +or any of the Ferdinands.) + +"...were immediately seized with enthusiasm for the +marvellous discovery of the Genoese adventurer." + +Picture. Columbus hands his globe to Isabella and his +compasses to Ferdinand. They register delight and +astonishment. The Queen turns the globe round and round +and holds it up to Ferdinand. Both indicate with their +faces, well-what-do-you-know-about-this. Ferdinand makes +a circle with the compasses on a table--the courtiers, +fickle creatures, crowd around. They are still dressed +as in Sardinia eighteen years ago. In fact, one recognises +quite a lot of them. When Ferdinand draws the circle they +fall back in wild astonishment, gesticulating frantically. +What they mean is, "It's a circle, it's a circle." + +"The King and Queen at once place three ships at the +disposal of Columbus." + +On with the picture. The harbour of the port of Palos-- +ships bobbing up and down (it is really the oyster boats +in Baltimore Bay but it looks just like Palos, or near +enough). Notice Queen Isabella on the right, at the top +of a flight of steps, extending her hand and looking at +Columbus. Her gesture means, "Pick a ship, any ship you +like, any colour." Just as if she were saying, "Pick a +card, any card you like." + +We turn again to the history. + +"...Christopher Columbus, now arrived at the height of +his desire, sets out upon his memorable voyage accompanied +by a hundred companions in three caravels, the Pinta, +the Nina and the Espiritu Santo." + +Ah, here we have the movie work--the real thing. Cardboard +caravel tossing on black water--seen first right close +to us--we are almost on board of it. Notice the movie +sailors with black whiskers and bare feet (bare feet in +the movies always means a sailor, and black whiskers mean +Spaniards). Now we see the caravel a little way out--whoop! +How she bobs up and down! They give her that jolt (it's +done with the machine itself) to mean danger. There are +all three caravels--Hoop--er--oo! See them go up and +down--stormy night coming all right. See the sun setting +in the west, over the water? They're heading straight +for it. Good-night Columbus--take care of yourself out +there in the blackness. + +"During the voyage Columbus remained continually on deck. +Sleeping at the prow, his face towards the new world, he +saw already in his dreams the accomplishment of his +hopes." + +On goes the picture. Christopher in the prow of the +caravel (in the movies a prow is made by putting two +little board fences together and propping up a bowsprit +lengthwise over them). Columbus sits up, peers intently +into the darkness, his hand to his brow--registers a +look. Do I see America? No. Lies down, shuts his eyes +and falls into an instantaneous movie sleep. His face +fades out slowly to music, which means that he is going +to dream. Then on the screen the announcement is shown: + +SPIRIT OF AMERICA... Miss E. Dickenson + +and here we have Miss Dickenson floating in the air above +Columbus. She wears nothing except mosquito netting, but +she has got on enough of it to get past the censor of +the State of New York. Just enough, apparently. + +Miss E. Dickenson is joined by a whole troop of Miss Dickensons +all in white mosquito netting. They go through a series of +beautiful evolutions, floating over the sleeping figure of +Columbus. The dance they do is meant to typify, or rather to +signify,--as a matter of fact we needn't worry much about what +it signified. It is an allegory, done in white mosquito netting. +That is generally held to be quite enough. Let us go back to +the book-- + +"After a storm-tossed voyage of three months..." + +Wait a bit. Turn on the picture again and toss the caravels +up and down. + +"...during which the food supply threatened to fail..." + +Put that on the screen, please. Columbus surrounded by +ten sailors, dividing up a potato. + +"...the caravels arrived in safety at the beautiful island +of San Salvador. Columbus, bearing the banner of Spain, +stepped first ashore. Surrounded by a wondering crowd of +savages he prostrated himself upon the beach and kissed +the soil of the New World that he had discovered." + +All this is so easy that it's too easy. It runs into +pictures of itself. Anybody, accustomed to the movies, +can see Columbus with his banner and the movie savages +hopping up and down around him. Movie savages are gay, +gladsome creatures anyway, and hopping up and down is +their chief mode of expressing themselves. Add to them +a sandy beach, with palm trees waving visibly in the wind +(it is always windy in the movies) and the thing is done. + +Just one further picture is needed to complete the film. + +"Columbus who returned to Europe to lay at the feet of +the Spanish sovereigns the world he had discovered, fell +presently under the disfavour of the court, and died in +poverty and obscurity, a victim of the ingratitude of +princes." + +Last picture. Columbus dying under the poignant +circumstances known only in the movies--a garret +room--ceiling lower than ever--a truckle bed, narrow +enough to kill him if all else failed--Teresa Colombo +his aged mother alone at his bedside--she offers him +medicine in a long spoon--(this shows, if nothing else +would, that the man is ill)--he shakes his head--puts +out his hand and rests it on the little globe--reaches +feebly for his compasses--can't manage it--rolls up his +eyes and fades. + +The music plays softly and the inexorable film, like +the reel of life itself, spins on, announcing + + At this theatre + All next week + + MAGGIE MAY + and + WALTER CURRAN + in + IS IT WORTH IT + +And after that I can imagine the audience dispersing, +and the now educated children going off to their homes +and one saying as he enters-- + +"Gee, I seen a great picture show at school to-day." + +"Yes?" says his mother, "and what was it?" + +"Oh, it was all about a gink that went round the cabarets +trying to sell an invention what he'd got but nobody +wouldn't look at it till at last one dame gave him three +oyster boats, see? and so he and a lot of other guys +loaded them up and hiked off across the ocean." + +"And where did he go to?" + +"Africa. And he and the other guys had a great stand in +with the natives and he'd have sold his invention all +right but one old dame got him alone in a hut and poisoned +him and took it off him." + +That, I think, is about the way the film would run. When +it is finished I must get President Shurman, or whoever +it was, to come and see it. + + + + +4.--Politics from Within + +To avoid all error as to the point of view, let me say +in commencing that I am a Liberal Conservative, or, if +you will, a Conservative Liberal with a strong dash of +sympathy with the Socialist idea, a friend of Labour, +and a believer in Progressive Radicalism. I do not desire +office but would take a seat in the Canadian Senate at +five minutes notice. + +I believe there are ever so many people of exactly this +way of thinking. + +Let me say further than in writing of "politics" I am +only dealing with the lights and shadows that flicker +over the surface, and am not trying to discuss, still +less to decry, the deep and vital issues that lie below. + +Yet I will say that vital though the issues may be below +the surface, there is more clap-trap, insincerity and +humbug on the surface of politics than over any equal +area on the face of any institution. + +The candidate, as such, is a humbug. The voters, as +voters--not as fathers, brothers or sons--are humbugs. +The committees are humbugs. And the speeches to the extent +of about ninety per cent are pure buncombe. But, oddly +enough, out of the silly babel of talk that accompanies +popular government, we get, after all, pretty good +government--infinitely better than the government of an +autocratic king. Between democracy and despotic kingship +lies all the difference between genial humbug and black +sin. + +For the candidate for popular office I have nothing but +sympathy and sorrow. It has been my fortune to walk round +at the heels of half a dozen of them in different little +Canadian towns, watching the candidate try in vain to +brighten up his face at the glad sight of a party voter. + +One, in particular, I remember. Nature had meant him to +be a sour man, a hard man, a man with but little joy in +the company of his fellows. Fate had made him a candidate +for the House of Commons. So he was doing his best to +belie his nature. + +"Hullo, William!" he would call out as a man passed +driving a horse and buggy, "got the little sorrel out +for a spin, eh?" + +Then he would turn to me and say in a low rasping voice-- + +"There goes about the biggest skunk in this whole +constituency." + +A few minutes later he would wave his hand over a little +hedge in friendly salutation to a man working in a garden. + +"Hullo, Jasper! That's a fine lot of corn you've got +there." + +Jasper replied in a growl. And when we were well past +the house the candidate would say between his teeth-- + +"That's about the meanest whelp in the riding." + +Our conversation all down the street was of that pattern. + +"Good morning, Edward! Giving the potatoes a dose of +Paris green, eh?" + +And in an undertone-- + +"I wish to Heaven he'd take a dose of it himself." + +And so on from house to house. + +I counted up, from one end of the street to the other, +that there were living in it seven skunks, fourteen low +whelps, eight mean hounds and two dirty skinflints. And +all of these merely among the Conservative voters. It +made me wish to be a Liberal. Especially as the Liberal +voters, by the law of the perversity of human affairs, +always seemed to be the finer lot. As they were NOT voting +for our candidate, they were able to meet him in a fair +and friendly way, whereas William and Jasper and Edward +and our "bunch" were always surly and hardly deigned to +give more than a growl in answer to the candidate's +greeting, without even looking up at him. + +But a Liberal voter would stop him in the street and +shake hands and say in a frank, cordial way. + +"Mr. Grouch, I'm sorry indeed that I can't vote for you, +and I'd like to be able to wish you success, but of course +you know I'm on the other side and always have been and +can't change now." + +Whereupon the Candidate would say. "That's all right, +John, I don't expect you to. I can respect a man's +convictions all right, I guess." + +So they would part excellent friends, the Candidate saying +as we moved off: + +"That man, John Winter, is one of the straightest men in +this whole county." + +Then he would add-- + +"Now we'll just go into this house for a minute. There's +a dirty pup in here that's one of our supporters." + +My opinion of our own supporters went lower every day, +and my opinion of the Liberal voters higher, till it so +happened that I went one day to an old friend of mine +who was working on the Liberal side. I asked him how he +liked it. + +"Oh, well enough!" he said, "as a sort of game. But in +this constituency you've got all the decent voters; our +voters are the lowest bunch of skunks I ever struck." + +Just then a man passed in a buggy, and looked sourly at +my friend the Liberal worker. + +"Hullo, John!" he called, with a manufactured hilarity, +"got the little mare out for a turn, eh?" + +John grunted. + +"There's one of them," said my friend, "the lowest pup +in this county, John Winter." + +"Come along," said the Candidate to me one morning, "I +want you to meet my committee." + +"You'll find them," he said confidingly, as we started +down the street towards the committee rooms, "an awful +bunch of mutts." + +"Too bad," I said, "what's wrong with them?" + +"Oh, I don't know--they're just a pack of simps. They +don't seem to have any PUNCH in them. The one you'll meet +first is the chairman--he's about the worst dub of the +lot; I never saw a man with so little force in my life. +He's got no magnetism, that's what's wrong with him--no +magnetism." + +A few minutes later the Candidate was introducing me to +a roomful of heavy looking Committee men. Committee men +in politics, I notice, have always a heavy bovine look. +They are generally in a sort of daze, or doped from +smoking free cigars. + +"Now I want to introduce you first," said the Candidate, +"to our chairman, Mr. Frog. Mr. Frog is our old battle +horse in this constituency. And this is our campaign +secretary Mr. Bughouse, and Mr. Dope, and Mr. Mudd, et +cetera." + +Those may not have been their names. + +It is merely what the names sounded like when one was +looking into their faces. + +The Candidate introduced them all as battle horses, battle +axes, battle leaders, standard bearers, flag-holders, +and so forth. If he had introduced them as hat-racks or +cigar holders, it would have been nearer the mark. + +Presently the Candidate went out and I was left with the +battle-axes. + +"What do you think of our chances?" I asked. + +The battle-axes shook their heads with dubious looks. + +"Pretty raw deal," said the Chairman, "the Convention +wishing HIM on us." He pointed with his thumb over his +shoulder to indicate the departed Candidate. + +"What's wrong with him?" I asked. + +Mr. Frog shook his head again. + +"No PUNCH," he said. + +"None at all," agreed all the battle horses. + +"I'll tell you," said the Campaign secretary, Mr. Bughouse, +a voluble man, with wandering eyes--"the trouble is he +has no magnetism, no personal magnetism." + +"I see," I said. + +"Now, you take this man, Shortis, that the Liberals have +got hold of," continued Mr. Bughouse, "he's full of +MAGNETISM. He appeals." + +All the other Committee men nodded. + +"That's so," they murmured, "magnetism, Our man hasn't +a darned ounce of it." + +"I met Shortis the other night in the street," went on +Mr. Bughouse, "and he said, 'Come on up to my room in +the hotel.' 'Oh,' I said, 'I can't very well.' 'Nonsense,' +he said, 'You're on the other side but what does that +matter?' Well, we went up to his room, and there he had +whiskey, and gin, and lager,--everything. 'Now,' he says, +'name your drink--what is it?' There he was, right in +his room, breaking the law without caring a darn about +it. Well, you know the voters like that kind of thing. +It appeals to them." + +"Well," said another of the Committee men,--I think it +was the one called Mr. Dope, "I wouldn't mind that so +much. But the chief trouble about our man, to my mind, +is that he can't speak." + +"He can't?" I exclaimed. + +All the Committee shook their heads. + +"Not for sour apples!" asserted Mr. Dope positively. +"Now, in this riding that won't do. Our people here are +used to first class speaking, they expect it. I suppose +there has been better speaking in this Constituency than +anywhere else in the whole dominion. Not lately, perhaps; +not in the last few elections. But I can remember, and +so can some of the boys here, the election when Sir John +A. spoke here, when the old Mackenzie government went +out." + +He looked around at the circle. Several nodded. + +"Remember it as well," assented Mr. Mudd, "as if it were +yesterday." + +"Well, sir," continued Mr. Dope, "I'll never forget Sir +John A. speaking here in the Odd Fellows' Hall, eh?" + +The Committee men nodded and gurgled in corroboration. + +"My! but he was PLASTERED. We had him over at Pete +Robinson's hotel all afternoon, and I tell you he was +plastered for fair. We ALL were. I remember I was so +pickled myself I could hardly help Sir John up the steps +of the platform. So were you, Mudd, do you remember?" + +"I certainly was!" said Mr. Mudd proudly. Committee men +who would scorn to drink lager beer in 1919, take a great +pride, I have observed, in having been pickled in 1878. + +"Yes, sir," continued Mr. Dope, "you certainly were +pickled. I remember just as well as anything, when they +opened the doors and let the crowd in: all the boys had +been bowling up and were pretty well soused. You never +saw such a crowd. Old Dr. Greenway (boys, you remember +the old Doc) was in the chair, and he was pretty well +spifflocated. Well, sir, Sir John A. got up in that hall +and he made the finest, most moving speech I ever listened +to. Do you remember when he called old Trelawney an +ash-barrel? And when he made that appeal for a union of +hearts and said that the sight of McGuire (the Liberal +candidate) made him sick? I tell you those were great +days. You don't get speaking like that now; and you don't +get audiences like that now either. Not the same calibre." + +All the Committee shook their heads. + +"Well, anyway, boys," said the Chairman, as he lighted +a fresh cigar, "to-morrow will decide, one way or the +other. We've certainly worked hard enough,"--here he +passed the box of cigars round to the others--"I haven't +been in bed before two any night since the work started." + +"Neither have I," said another of the workers. "I was +just saying to the wife when I got up this morning that +I begin to feel as if I never wanted to see the sight of +a card again." + +"Well, I don't regret the work," said the Secretary, "so +long as we carry the riding. You see," he added in +explanation to me, "we're up against a pretty hard +proposition here. This riding really is Liberal: they've +got the majority of voters though we HAVE once or twice +swung it Conservative. But whether we can carry it with +a man like Grouch is hard to say. One thing is certain, +boys, if he DOES carry it, he doesn't owe it to himself." + +All the battle horses agreed on this. A little after that +we dispersed. + +And twenty-four hours later the vote was taken and to my +intense surprise the riding was carried by Grouch the +Conservative candidate. + +I say, to MY surprise. But apparently not to anybody else. + +For it appeared this (was in conversations after the +election) that Grouch was a man of extraordinary magnetism. +He had, so they said, "punch." Shortis, the Liberal, it +seemed, lacked punch absolutely. Even his own supporters +admitted that he had no personality whatever. Some wondered +how he had the nerve to run. + +But my own theory of how the election was carried is +quite different. + +I feel certain that all the Conservative voters despised +their candidate so much that they voted Liberal. And all +the Liberals voted Conservative. + +That carried the riding. + +Meantime Grouch left the constituency by the first train +next day for Ottawa. Except for paying taxes on his house, +he will not be back in the town till they dissolve +parliament again. + + + + +5.--The Lost Illusions of Mr. Sims + +In the club to which I belong, in a quiet corner where +the sunlight falls in sideways, there may be seen sitting +of an afternoon my good friend of thirty years' standing, +Mr. Edward Sims. Being somewhat afflicted with gout, he +generally sits with one foot up on a chair. On a brass +table beside him are such things as Mr. Sims needs. But +they are few. Wealthy as he is, the needs of Mr. Sims +reach scarcely further than Martini cocktails and Egyptian +cigarettes. Such poor comforts as these, brought by a +deferential waiter, with, let us say, a folded newspaper +at five o'clock, suffice for all his wants. Here sits +Mr. Sims till the shadows fall in the street outside, +when a limousine motor trundles up to the club and rolls +him home. + +And here of an afternoon Mr. Sims talks to me of his +college days when he was young. The last thirty years of +his life have moved in so gentle a current upon so smooth +a surface that they have been without adventure. It is +the stormy period of his youth that preoccupies my friend +as he sits looking from the window of the club at the +waving leaves in the summer time and the driving snow in +the winter. + +I am of that habit of mind that makes me prone to listen. +And for this, perhaps, Mr. Sims selects me as the recipient +of the stories of his college days. It is, it seems, the +fixed belief of my good friend that when he was young he +belonged at college to a particularly nefarious crowd or +group that exists in his mind under the name of the "old +gang." The same association, or corporate body or whatever +it should be called, is also designated by Mr. Sims, the +"old crowd," or more simply and affectionately "the boys." +In the recollection of my good friend this "old gang" +were of a devilishness since lost off the earth. Work +they wouldn't. Sleep they despised. While indoors they +played poker in a blue haze of tobacco smoke with beer +in jugs and mugs all round them. All night they were out +of doors on the sidewalk with linked arms, singing songs +in chorus and jeering at the city police. + +Yet in spite of life such as this, which might appear to +an outsider wearing to the intellect, the "old gang" as +recollected by Mr. Sims were of a mental brilliancy that +eclipses everything previous or subsequent. McGregor of +the Class of '85 graduated with a gold medal in Philosophy +after drinking twelve bottles of lager before sitting +down to his final examination. Ned Purvis, the football +half-back, went straight from the football field after +a hard game with his ankle out of joint, drank half a +bottle of Bourbon Rye and then wrote an examination in +Greek poetry that drew tears from the President of the +college. + +Mr. Sims is perhaps all the more prone to talk of these +early days insomuch that, since his youth, life, in the +mere material sense, has used him all too kindly. At an +early age, indeed at about the very time of his graduation, +Mr. Sims came into money,--not money in the large and +frenzied sense of a speculative fortune, begetting care +and breeding anxiety, but in the warm and comfortable +inheritance of a family brewery, about as old and as +well-established as the Constitution of the United States. +In this brewery, even to-day, Mr. Sims, I believe, spends +a certain part, though no great part, of his time. He is +carried to it, I understand, in his limousine in the +sunnier hours of the morning; for an hour or so each day +he moves about among the warm smell of the barley and +the quiet hum of the machinery murmuring among its dust. + +There is, too, somewhere in the upper part of the city +a huge, silent residence, where a noiseless butler adjusts +Mr. Sims's leg on a chair and serves him his dinner in +isolated luxury. + +But the residence, and the brewery, and with them the +current of Mr. Sims's life move of themselves. + +Thus has care passed Mr. Sims by, leaving him stranded +in a club chair with his heavy foot and stick beside him. + +Mr. Sims is a bachelor. Nor is he likely now to marry: +but this through no lack of veneration or respect for +the sex. It arises, apparently, from the fact that when +Mr. Sims was young, during his college days, the beauty +and charm of the girls who dwelt in his college town was +such as to render all later women mere feeble suggestions +of what might have been. There was, as there always is, +one girl in particular. I have not heard my friend speak +much of her. But I gather that Kate Dashaway was the kind +of girl who might have made a fit mate even for the sort +of intellectual giant that flourished at Mr. Sims's college. +She was not only beautiful. All the girls remembered by +Mr. Sims were that. But she was in addition "a good head" +and "a good sport," two of the highest qualities that, in +Mr. Sims's view, can crown the female sex. She had, he +said, no "nonsense" about her, by which term Mr. Sims +indicated religion. She drank lager beer, played tennis as +well as any man in the college, and smoked cigarettes a +whole generation in advance of the age. + +Mr. Sims, so I gather, never proposed to her, nor came +within a measurable distance of doing so. A man so prone, +as is my friend, to spend his time in modest admiration +of the prowess of others is apt to lag behind. Miss +Dashaway remains to Mr. Sims, as all else does, a retrospect +and a regret. + +But the chief peculiarities of the old gang--as they +exist in the mind of Mr. Sims--is the awful fate that +has overwhelmed them. It is not merely that they are +scattered to the four corners of the continent. That +might have been expected. But, apparently, the most awful +moral ruin has fallen upon them. That, at least, is the +abiding belief of Mr. Sims. + +"Do you ever hear anything of McGregor now?" I ask him +sometimes. + +"No," he says, shaking his head quietly. "I understand +he went all to the devil." + +"How was that?" + +"Booze," says Mr. Sims. There is a quiet finality about +the word that ends all discussion. + +"Poor old Curly!" says Mr. Sims, in speaking of another +of his classmates. "I guess he's pretty well down and +out these days." + +"What's the trouble?" I say. + +Mr. Sims moves his eyes sideways as he sits. It is easier +than moving his head. + +"Booze," he says. + +Even apparent success in life does not save Mr. Sims's +friends. + +"I see," I said one day, "that they have just made Arthur +Stewart a Chief Justice out west." + +"Poor old Artie," murmured Mr. Sims. "He'll have a hard +time holding it down. I imagine he's pretty well tanked +up all the time these days." + +When Mr. Sims has not heard of any of his associates for +a certain lapse of years, he decides to himself that they +are down and out. It is a form of writing them off. There +is a melancholy satisfaction in it. As the years go by +Mr. Sims is coming to regard himself and a few others as +the lonely survivors of a great flood. All the rest, +brilliant as they once were, are presumed to be "boozed," +"tanked," "burnt out," "bust-up," and otherwise consumed. + +After having heard for so many years the reminiscences +of my good friend about the old gang, it seemed almost +incredible that one of them should step into actual living +being before my eyes. Yet so it happened. + +I found Mr. Sims at the club one day, about to lunch +there, a thing contrary to his wont. And with him was a +friend, a sallow, insignificant man in the middle fifties, +with ragged, sandy hair, wearing thin. + +"Shake hands with Tommy Vidal," said Mr. Sims proudly. + +If he had said, "Shake hands with Aristotle," he couldn't +have spoken with greater pride. + +This then was Tommy Vidal, the intellectual giant of whom +I had heard a hundred times. Tommy had, at college, so +Mr. Sims had often assured me, the brightest mind known +since the age of Pericles. He took the prize in Latin +poetry absolutely "without opening a book." Latin to +Tommy Vidal had been, by a kind of natural gift, born in +him. In Latin he was "a whale." Indeed in everything. He +had passed his graduation examination with first class +honours; "plastered." He had to be held in his seat, so +it was recorded, while he wrote. + +Tommy, it seemed, had just "blown in" to town that morning. +It was characteristic of Mr. Sims's idea of the old gang +that the only way in which any of them were supposed to +enter a town was to "blow in." + +"When did you say you 'blew in,' Tommy?" he asked about +half a dozen times during our lunch. In reality, the +reckless, devil-may-care fellow Vidal had "blown in" to +bring his second daughter to a boarding school--a thing +no doubt contemplated months ahead. But Mr. Sims insisted +in regarding Tommy's movements as purely fortuitous, the +sport of chance. He varied his question by asking "When +do you expect to 'blow out' Tommy?" Tommy's answers he +forgot at once. + +We sat and talked after lunch, and it pained me to notice +that Tommy Vidal was restless and anxious to get away. +Mr. Sims offered him cigars, thick as ropes and black as +night, but he refused them. It appeared that he had long +since given up smoking. It affected his eyes, he said. +The deferential waiter brought brandy and curacoa in long +thin glasses. But Mr. Vidal shook his head. He hadn't +had a drink, he said, for twenty years. He found it +affected his hearing. Coffee, too, he refused. It affected, +so it seemed, his sense of smell. He sat beside us, ill +at ease, and anxious, as I could see, to get back to his +second daughter and her schoolmistresses. Mr. Sims, who +is geniality itself in his heart, but has no great powers +in conversation, would ask Tommy if he remembered how he +acted as Antigone in the college play, and was "plastered" +from the second act on. Mr. Vidal had no recollection of +it, but wondered if there was any good book-store in town +where he could buy his daughter an Algebra. He rose when +he decently could and left us. As Mr. Sims saw it, he +"blew out." + +Mr. Sims is kindliness itself in his judgments. He passed +no word of censure on his departed friend. But a week or +so later he mentioned to me in conversation that Tommy +Vidal had "turned into a kind of stiff." The vocabulary +of Mr. Sims holds no term of deeper condemnation than +the word "stiff." To be a "stiff" is the last form of +degradation. + +It is strange that when a thing happens once, it forthwith +happens twice or even more. For years no member of the +"old gang" had come in touch with Mr. Sims. Yet the visit +of Tommy Vidal was followed at no great distance of time +by the "blowing in" of Ned Purvis. + +"Well, well!" said Mr. Sims, as he opened one afternoon +a telegram that the deferential waiter brought upon a +tray. "This beats all! Old Ned Purvis wires that he's +going to blow in to town to-night at seven." + +Forthwith Mr. Sims fell to ordering dinner for the three +of us in a private room, with enough of an assortment of +gin cocktails and Scotch highballs to run a distillery, +and enough Vichy water and imported soda for a bath. "I +know old Ned!" he said as he added item after item to +the list. + +At seven o'clock the waiter whispered, as in deep +confidence, that there was a gentleman below for Mr. +Sims. + +It so happened that on that evening my friend's foot was +in bad shape, and rested on a chair. At his request I +went from the lounge room of the club downstairs to +welcome the new arrival. + +Purvis I knew all about. My friend had spoken of him a +thousand times. He had played half-back on the football +team--a big hulking brute of a fellow. In fact, he was, +as pictured by Mr. Sims, a perfect colossus. And he played +football--as did all Mr. Sims's college chums--"plastered." +"Old Ned," so Mr. Sims would relate, "was pretty well +'soused' when the game started: but we put a hose at him +at half-time and got him into pretty good shape." All +men in any keen athletic contest, as remembered by Mr. +Sims, were pretty well "tanked up." For the lighter, +nimbler games such as tennis, they were reported +"spifflocated" and in that shape performed prodigies of +agility. + +"You'll know Ned," said Mr. Sims, "by his big shoulders." +I went downstairs. + +The reception room below was empty, except for one man, +a little, gentle-looking man with spectacles. He wore +black clothes with a waistcoat reaching to the throat, +a white tie and a collar buttoned on backwards. Ned Purvis +was a clergyman! His great hulking shoulders had gone +the way of all my good friend's reminiscences. + +I brought him upstairs. + +For a moment, in the half light of the room, Mr. Sims +was still deceived. + +"Well, Ned!" he began heartily, with a struggle to rise +from his chair--then he saw the collar and tie of the +Rev. Mr. Purvis, and the full horror of the thing dawned +upon him. Nor did the three gin cocktails, which Mr. Sims +had had stationed ready for the reunion, greatly help +its geniality. Yet it had been a maxim, in the recollections +of Mr. Sims, that when any of the boys blew in anywhere +the bringing of drinks must be instantaneous and uproarious. + +Our dinner that night was very quiet. + +Mr. Purvis drank only water. That, with a little salad, +made his meal. He had a meeting to address that evening +at eight, a meeting of women--"dear women" he called +them--who had recently affiliated their society with the +work that some of the dear women in Mr. Purvis's own town +were carrying on. The work, as described, boded no good +for breweries. Mr. Purvis's wife, so it seemed, was with +him and would also "take the platform." + +As best we could we made conversation. + +"I didn't know that you were married," said Mr. Sims. + +"Yes," said Mr. Purvis, "married, and with five dear boys +and three dear girls." The eight of them, he told us, +were a great blessing. So, too, was his wife--a great +social worker, it seemed, in the cause of women's rights +and a marvellous platform speaker in the temperance +crusade. + +"By the way, Mr. Sims," said Mr. Purvis (they had called +one another "Mr." after the first five minutes), "you +may remember my wife. I think perhaps you knew her in +our college days. She was a Miss Dashaway." + +Mr. Sims bowed his head over his plate, as another of +his lost illusions vanished into thin air. + +After Mr. Purvis had gone, my friend spoke out his +mind--once and once only, and more in regret than anger. + +"I'm afraid," he said, "that old Ned has turned into a +SISSY." + +It was only to be expected that the visits of later +friends--the "boys" who happened to "blow in"--were +disappointments. Art Hamilton, who came next, and who +had been one of the most brilliant men of the Class of +'86 had turned somehow into a "complete mutt." Jake Todd, +who used to write so brilliantly in the college paper, +as recollected by Mr. Sims, was now the editor of a big +New York daily. Good things might have been expected of +him, but it transpired that he had undergone "wizening +of the brain." In fact, a number of Mr. Sims's former +friends had suffered from this cruel disease, consisting +apparently of a shrinkage or contraction of the cerebellum. + +Mr. Sims spoke little of his disappointments. But I knew +that he thought much about them. They set him wondering. +There were changes here that to the thoughtful mind called +for investigation. + +So I was not surprised when he informed me that it was +his intention to visit "the old place" and have a look +at it. The "old place," called also the "old shop," +indicated, as I knew, Mr. Sims's college, the original +scene of the exploits of the old gang. In the thirty +years since he had graduated, though separated from it +only by two hundred miles, Mr. Sims had never revisited +it. So is it always with the most faithful of the sons +of learning. The illumination of the inner eye is better +than the crude light of reality. College reunions are +but for the noisy lip service of the shallow and the +interested. The deeper affection glows in the absent +heart. + +My friend invited me to "come along." We would, he said, +"blow in" upon the place and have a look at it. + +It was in the fullness of the spring time that we went, +when the leaves are out on the college campus, and when +Commencement draws near, and when all the college, even +the students, are busy. + +Mr. Sims, I noted when I joined him at the train, was +dressed as for the occasion. He wore a round straw hat +with a coloured ribbon, and light grey suit, and a necktie +with the garish colours of the college itself. Thus +dressed, he leaned as lightly as his foot allowed him +upon a yellow stick, and dreamed himself again an +undergraduate. + +I had thought the purpose of his visit a mere curiosity +bred in his disappointment. It appeared that I was wrong. +On the train Mr. Sims unfolded to me that his idea in +"blowing in" upon his college was one of benefaction. He +had it in his mind, he said, to do something for the "old +place," no less a thing than to endow a chair. He explained +to me, modestly as was his wont, the origin of his idea. +The brewing business, it appeared, was rapidly reaching +a stage when it would have to be wound up. The movement +of prohibition would necessitate, said Mr. Sims, the +closing of the plant. The prospect, in the financial +sense, occasioned my friend but little excitement. I was +given to understand that prohibition, in the case of Mr. +Sims's brewery, had long since been "written off" or +"written up" or at least written somewhere where it didn't +matter. And the movement itself Mr. Sims does not regard +as permanent. Prohibition, he says, is bound to be washed +out by a "turn of the tide"; in fact, he speaks of this +returning wave of moral regeneration much as Martin Luther +might have spoken of the Protestant Reformation. But for +the time being the brewery will close. Mr. Sims had +thought deeply, it seemed, about putting his surplus +funds into the manufacture of commercial alcohol, itself +a noble profession. For some time his mind has wavered +between that and endowing a chair of philosophy. There +is, and always has been, a sort of natural connection +between the drinking of beer and deep quiet thought. Mr. +Sims, as a brewer, felt that philosophy was the proper +thing. + +We left the train, walked through the little town and +entered the university gates. + +"Gee!" said Mr. Sims, pausing a moment and leaning on +his stick, "were the gates only as big as that?" + +We began to walk up the avenue. + +"I thought there were more trees to it than these," said +Mr. Sims. + +"Yes," I answered. "You often said that the avenue was +a quarter of a mile long." + +"So the thing used to be," he murmured. + +Then Mr. Sims looked at the campus. "A dinky looking +little spot," he said. + +"Didn't you say," I asked, "that the Arts Building was +built of white marble?" + +"Always thought it was," he answered. "Looks like rough +cast from here, doesn't it." + +"We'll have to go in and see the President, I suppose," +continued Mr. Sims. He said it with regret. Something of +his undergraduate soul had returned to his body. Although +he had never seen the President (this one) in his life, +and had only read of his appointment some five years +before in the newspapers, Mr. Sims was afraid of him. + +"Now, I tell you," he went on. "We'll just make a break +in and then a quick get-away. Don't let's get anchored +in there, see? If the old fellow gets talking, he'll go +on for ever. I remember the way it used to be when a +fellow had to go in to see Prexy in my time. The old guy +would start mooning away and quoting Latin and keep us +there half the morning." + +At this moment two shabby-looking, insignificant men who +had evidently come out from one of the buildings, passed +us on the sidewalk. + +"I wonder who those guys are," said Mr. Sims. "Look like +bums, don't they?" + +I shook my head. Some instinct told me that they were +professors. But I didn't say so. + +My friend continued his instructions. + +"When the President asks us to lunch," he said, "I'll +say that we're lunching with a friend down town, see? +Then we'll make a break and get out. If he says he wants +to introduce us to the Faculty or anything like that, +then you say that we have to get the twelve-thirty to +New York, see? I'm not going to say anything about a +chair in philosophy to-day. I want to read it up first +some night so as to be able to talk about it." + +To all of this I agreed. + +From a janitor we inquired where to find the President. + +"In the Administration Building, eh?" said Mr. Sims. +"That's a new one on me. The building on the right, eh? +Thank you." + +"See the President?" said a young lady in an ante-office. +"I'm not sure whether you can see him just now. Have you +an appointment?" + +Mr. Sims drew out a card. "Give him that" he said. On +the card he had scribbled "Graduate of 1887." + +In a few minutes we were shown into another room where +there was a young man, evidently the President's secretary, +and a number of people waiting. + +"Will you kindly sit down," murmured the young man, in +a consulting-room voice, "and wait? The President is +engaged just now." + +We waited. Through the inner door leading to the President +people went and came. Mr. Sims, speaking in whispers, +continued to caution me on the quickness of our get-away. + +Presently the young man touched him on the shoulder. + +"The President will see you now," he whispered. + +We entered the room. The "old guy" rose to meet us, Mr. +Sims's card in his hand. But he was not old. He was at +least ten years younger than either of us. He was, in +fact, what Mr. Sims and I would almost have called a boy. +In dress and manner he looked as spruce and busy as the +sales manager of a shoe factory. + +"Delighted to see you, gentlemen," he said, shaking hands +effusively. "We are always pleased to see our old graduates, +Mr. Samson--No, I beg pardon, Mr. Sims--class of '97, I +see--No, I beg your pardon, Class of '67, I read it +wrongly--" + +I heard Mr. Sims murmuring something that seemed to +contain the words "a look around." + +"Yes, yes, exactly," said the President. "A look round, +you'll find a great deal to interest you in looking about +the place, I'm sure, Mr. Samson, great changes. I'm +extremely sorry I can't offer to take you round myself," +here he snapped a gold watch open and shut, "the truth +is I have to catch the twelve-thirty to New York--so +sorry." + +Then he shook our hands again, very warmly. + +In another moment we were outside the door. The get-away +was accomplished. + +We walked out of the building and towards the avenue. + +As we passed the portals of the Arts Building, a noisy, +rackety crowd of boys--evidently, to our eyes, schoolboys +--came out, jostling and shouting. They swarmed past us, +accidentally, no doubt, body-checking Mr. Sims, whose +straw hat was knocked off and rolled on the sidewalk. +A janitor picked it up for him as the crowd of boys +passed. + +"What pack of young bums are those?" asked Mr. Sims. +"You oughtn't to let young roughs like that come into +the buildings. Are they here from some school or something?" + +"No sir," said the janitor. "They're students." + +"Students?" repeated Mr. Sims. "And what are they shouting +like that for?" + +"There's a notice up that their professor is ill, and so +the class is cancelled, sir." + +"Class!" said Mr. Sims. "Are those a class?" + +"Yes, sir," said the janitor. "That's the Senior Class +in Philosophy." + +Mr. Sims said nothing. He seemed to limp more than his +custom as we passed down the avenue. + +On the way home on the train he talked much of crude +alcohol and the possibilities of its commercial manufacture. + +So far as I know, his only benefaction up to date has +been the two dollars that he gave to a hackman to drive +us away from the college. + + + + +6.--Fetching the Doctor: From Recollections of + Childhood in the Canadian Countryside + +We lived far back in the country, such as it used to be +in Canada, before the days of telephones and motor cars, +with long lonely roads and snake fences buried in deep +snow, and with cedar swamps where the sleighs could hardly +pass two abreast. Here and there, on a winter night, one +saw the light in a farm house, distant and dim. + +Over it all was a great silence such as people who live +in the cities can never know. + +And on us, as on the other families of that lonely +countryside, there sometimes fell the sudden alarm of +illness, and the hurrying drive through the snow at night +to fetch the doctor from the village, seven miles away. + +My elder brother and I--there was a long tribe of us, as +with all country families--would hitch up the horse by +the light of the stable lantern, eager with haste and +sick with fear, counting the time till the doctor could +be there. + +Then out into the driving snow, urging the horse that +knew by instinct that something was amiss, and so mile +after mile, till we rounded the corner into the single +street of the silent village. + +Late, late at night it was--eleven o'clock, perhaps--and +the village dark and deep in sleep, except where the +light showed red against the blinds of the "Surgery" of +the doctor's rough-cast house behind the spruce trees. + +"Doctor," we cried, as we burst in, "hurry and come. +Jim's ill--" + +I can see him still as he sat there in his surgery, the +burly doctor, rugged and strong for all the sixty winters +that he carried. There he sat playing chess--always he +seemed to be playing chess--with his son, a medical +student, burly and rugged already as himself. + +"Shut the door, shut the door!" he called. "Come in, +boys; here, let me brush that snow off you--it's my move +Charlie, remember--now, what the devil's the matter?" + +Then we would pant out our hurried exclamations, both +together. + +"Bah!" he growled, "ill nothing! Mere belly ache, I +guess." + +That was his term, his favorite word, for an undiagnosed +disease--"belly ache." They call it supergastral aesthesia +now. In a city house, it sounds better. Yet how we hung +upon the doctor's good old Saxon term, yearning and hoping +that it might be that. + +But even as he growled the doctor had taken down a lantern +from a hook, thrown on a huge, battered fur coat that +doubled his size, and was putting medicines--a very +shopful it seemed--into a leather case. + +"Your horse is done up," he said. "We'll put my mare in. +Come and give me a hand, Charlie." + +He was his own hostler and stable-man, he and his burly +son. Yet how quickly and quietly he moved, the lantern +swinging on his arm, as he buckled the straps. "What kind +of a damn fool tug is this you've got?" he would say. + +Then, in a moment, as it seemed, out into the wind and +snow again, the great figure of the doctor almost filling +the seat of the cutter, the two of us crushed in beside +him, with responsibility, the unbearable burden, gone +from us, and renewed comfort in our hearts. + +Little is said on the way: our heads are bent against +the storm: the long stride of the doctor's mare eats up +the flying road. + +Then as we near the farm house and see the light in the +sick-room window, fear clutches our hearts again. + +"You boys unhitch," says the doctor. "I'll go right in." + +Presently, when we enter the house, we find that he is +in the sick-room--the door closed. No word of comfort +has come forth. He has sent out for hot blankets. The +stoves are to be kept burning. We must sit up. We may be +needed. That is all. + +And there in that still room through the long night, he +fights single-handed against Death. Behind him is no +human help, no consultation, no wisdom of the colleges +to call in; only his own unaided strength, and his own +firm purpose and that strange instinct in the fight for +a flickering life, that some higher power than that of +colleges has planted deep within his soul. + +So we watch through the night hours, in dull misery and +fear, a phantom at the window pane: so must we wait till +the slow morning shows dim and pale at the windows. + +Then he comes out from the room. His face is furrowed +with the fatigue of his long vigil. But as he speaks the +tone of his voice is as that of one who has fought and +conquered. + +"There--he'll do now. Give him this when he wakes." + +Then a great joy sweeps over us as the phantom flees +away, and we shudder back into the warm sunshine of life, +while the sound of the doctor's retreating sleighbells +makes music to our ears. + +And once it was not so. The morning dawned and he did +not come from the darkened room: only there came to our +listening ears at times the sound of a sob or moan, and +the doctor's voice, firm and low, but with all hope gone +from it. + +And when at last he came, his face seemed old and sad as +we had never seen it. He paused a moment on the threshold +and we heard him say, "I have done all that I can." Then +he beckoned us into the darkened room, and, for the first +time, we knew Death. + +All that is forty years ago. + +They tell me that, since then, the practice of medicine +has been vastly improved. There are specialists now, I +understand, for every conceivable illness and for every +subdivision of it. If I fall ill, there is a whole battery +of modern science to be turned upon me in a moment. There +are X-rays ready to penetrate me in all directions. I +may have any and every treatment--hypnotic, therapeutic +or thaumaturgic--for which I am able to pay. + +But, oh, my friends, when it shall come to be my lot to +be ill and stricken--in the last and real sense, with +the Great Fear upon me, and the Dark Phantom at the +pane--then let some one go, fast and eager--though it be +only in the paths of an expiring memory--fast and eager, +through the driving snow to bring him to my bedside. Let +me hear the sound of his hurrying sleighbells as he comes, +and his strong voice without the door--and, if that may +not be, then let me seem at least to feel the clasp of +his firm hand to guide me without fear to the Land of +Shadows, where he has gone before. + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Hohenzollerns in America, by Stephen Leacock + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN AMERICA *** + +This file should be named 4781.txt or 4781.zip + +This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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