What may be the Kaiser's ultimate fate is thus amusingly told by _Life_
of the scene in Hell on a certain day:
"What's all the racket about?" said Satan, stepping out of the Brimstone
Bath, where he was giving two or three U-boat commanders an extra
flaying.
"Poor old Hohenzollern has got it in the neck at last," said
Machiavelli, who was hosing off the premises with vitriol in
preparation for a new squad of shirtwaist-factory owners.
Satan listened attentively. Indeed, it was true. The Hohenzollerns had
been booted off the throne of Germany.
"Well, that's tough," said Satan. "I never could see why they chivied
those poor Hohenzollerns so. They were perfect devils. I have often said
so. Poor old Bill! Why, he was one of the best pupils I ever had. I
heard someone say that he had made Belgium a hell upon earth. Wasn't
that a compliment?"
"Not only that," said Machiavelli; "he had the novel idea of making the
sea a hell, too. He and Tirpitz did magnificent work. Not even a party
of schoolgirls could go on the water without getting torpedoed. They
drowned I don't know how many innocent women and children in a manner
worthy of the highest education."
"That deportation of non-combatants from Lille was excellent, too,"
mused Satan.
"Don't forget the shooting of Miss Cavell," said Machiavelli. "And there
was the bombing of unfortified towns, and the poison gas. Why, in my
palmiest days I never thought of anything so choice as that poison gas.
I told Borgia about it, and she went green with envy."
"You're right, Mac," said Satan, treading in his excitement on a
captain of Uhlans who was hanging out to cool; "that Kaiser is a regular
prince of darkness. When he gets down here (and I guess he will pretty
soon) we'll omit the setting-up exercises and put him right into
advanced tactics. Come to think of it, there were those prison camps,
too, where he allowed captured soldiers to rot with filth and disease
without any physicians. Excellent!"
"There's only one drawback," said Machiavelli regretfully. "The man has
raised so much hell on earth that I doubt if there's much we can teach
him down here. Really, he's not an amateur at all, but a professional. I
don't know whether it wouldn't be more punishment to send him to heaven
instead. As a matter of fact, down here he'll feel perfectly at home."
"I guess we can still think up one or two little novelties for him,"
said Satan, as he opened a trap-door and let a dozen of Billy Sunday's
converts drop into the blazing sulphur.