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!