window-straps of real leather, to the perfect condition of the
seat-cushions. A German returning to his pre-war residence in Buenos
Aires with his Argentine wife and two attractive daughters, whom I had
met at table the evening before, insisted that I share his compartment
with them. He had spent three months and several thousand marks to
obtain his passports, and the authorities at the border had forced him
to leave behind all but the amount barely sufficient to pay his expenses
to his destination. The transplanted wife was far more pro-German in her
utterances than her husband, and flayed the “wicked Allies” ceaselessly
in her fiery native tongue. During all the journey the youngest
daughter, a girl of sixteen whose unqualified beauty highly sanctioned
this particular mixture of races, sat huddled together in her corner
like a statue of bodily suffering. Only once that morning did she open
her faultless lips. At my expression of solicitude she turned her
breath-taking countenance toward me and murmured in a tone that made
even German sound musical:
“You see, we have not been used to rich food in Germany since I was a
child, and—and last night I ate _so_ much!”
The stern days of the Kaiser’s régime, with their depressing submergence
of personal liberty, would seem to have faded away. During all my weeks
of wandering at large throughout the Fatherland not once did a guardian
of the law so much as whisper in my ear. In contrast, during twenty-four
hours in Holland I was twice taken in charge by detectives—it seems they
were looking for a “bird” named Vogel—once in the streets of Oldenzaal
and again as I descended from the train at Rotterdam.
THE END
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Foreward and p. 112, changed "Hungry Empire" to "Hungary Empire"
everywhere.
2. P. 10, changed “Organisationssinn” to “Organizationsinn”.
3. P. 12, changed “Addresse” to “Adresse”.
4. P. 26 changed “Americaner” to “Amerikaner”.
5. P. 41, changed “Königlicher” to “Königliches”.
6. P. 47, changed “kurfürsten” to “Kurfürsten”.
7. P. 48, changed “Türingerwald” to “Thüringerwald”.
8. P. 54 and 69, changed “Uns” to “uns”.
9. P. 66, changed “Blitzen” to “Blitz”.
10. P. 107, changed “keine Friede” to “keinen Frieden”.
11. P. 112, changed “Reichspresident” to “Reichspräsident”.
12. P. 121, changed “Französischerstrasse” to “Französischestrasse”.
13. P. 130, changed “Brühwürtchen” to “Brühwürstchen”.
14. P. 146, changed “Schlachtküh” to “Schlachtkuh”.
15. P. 265, changed “Selbstbesorger” to “Selbstversorger”.
16. P. 334, changed “Kühkäserei” to “Kuhkäserei”.
17. P. 341, changed “Real Schule” to “Realschule”.
18. Silently corrected typographical errors and also variations in
spelling.
19. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as
printed.
20. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.