Karl has emerged from the obscurity in which for years he has been
wrapped and has become a topic of conversation, a link with the past, a
popular alien enemy and a common nuisance.
Once upon a time, when we were first told about Karl, those of us who
didn't say that it was an extraordinary coincidence observed that the
world is a small place after all; but now, when the narrator reaches
that part of the story where he tells us that we "can imagine his
surprise when"--I usually interrupt him to say that he must forgive me,
but really I can_not_.
Karl was a German waiter at all the restaurants where my friends and my
friends' friends were in the habit of dining. In time of peace not one
of our mutual friends ever mentioned Karl to me, nobody ever wrote
excitedly to tell me that they had seen him getting into a bus in the
Strand; but now----
My sister-in-law's brother has the distinction of being the first among
us to meet Karl since the outbreak of war. He was at Waterloo Station
one morning when some German prisoners were being brought through
from----, and as he passed them someone, speaking with a familiar voice
and a strong German accent, addressed him by name. You can imagine his
surprise when----
Karl, my sister-in-law said her brother told her, had spoken of being
pleased to be among us once more, but this was apparently only another
German lie, for when next I heard of him he was back in the trenches
again. A friend of my brother's fiancee, who was superintending the
removal of some German wounded to Paris, was surprised to find himself
addressed by name by a young German whose face seemed vaguely familiar.
You can imagine his astonishment when, etc. Karl, my brother said the
friend of his fiancee told her, was only too glad to have fallen into
English hands.
It was in a hospital ship in the North Sea that my cousin met him. The
situation remained unchanged. He addressed my cousin by name and said he
was longing to be back in England again.
Two days afterwards I heard that a friend of mine had seen him in
Holland, where the unlucky fellow was interned, having deserted with the
intention of returning to us.
I made it my business to let my friends know--those friends of mine who
had not already heard from someone who had met him--that he was securely
interned in Holland, and we should know no more of him until the war was
over, and after that I had for some time the pleasure of forgetting his
existence. Unfortunately, however, I had overlooked Stephen.
Stephen and I were talking of the war (and incidentally having dinner
together) when he told me that a man he knew had told him of a strange
coincidence of which his nephew had told him. A friend of his who was at
the Front had been in the habit of dining at a certain restaurant where
a German waiter----
"Karl," I said.
"You've heard about it?" he asked.
"Only yesterday," I said, "I met a friend who knew someone who was
present at the inquest."
"The inquest!"
"Yes," I said. "He shot himself through the heart with one of the seven
hundred and twenty-five rifles which were found in her dress-basket."