"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."