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L.P.M. : The End of the Great War, a novel by J. Stewart Barney |
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Chapter 19. The German Point Of View |
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_ CHAPTER XIX. THE GERMAN POINT OF VIEW They sat this way for some time, Edestone looking thoughtfully out of the car window and rather disgusted with himself for having lessened his dignity in the eyes of the other man. He was broad enough to be able to put himself in von Hemelstein's place. He knew that by birth, education, and example the man's attitude to him, in fact to the rest of the world, was that of a superior being looking down upon those immeasurably beneath him. For him, a Prussian nobleman, to be spoken to in this way by one of a lower sphere was bad enough, but when that one was of the very lowest of spheres, an American, it was acute pain. He looked upon Edestone as a low comedian rather than as a gentleman in the hands of a chivalrous enemy, which the officer considered himself to be. Edestone himself felt no resentment but the sort of pity that he would feel for one who was born with an hereditary weakness that he could no more control than the colour of his eyes. He was as sorry as he would have been, had he been guilty of laughing at the irregularity of another man's teeth which were not so perfect as his own. He got up and walked slowly over toward his travelling companion. The handsome warrior quickly let his hand fall to his loaded automatic as if he expected to be attacked, but when he saw Edestone standing quietly before him, and with a rather sad smile on his face, he turned back to his reading and refused to look up, even after Edestone had begun to speak. "I am sorry, Count von Hemelstein," said the inventor, "to have offended you, and I beg that you will accept my most humble apology. We Americans, I fear, are too much inclined to let our sense of humour run away with us." The soldier raised his eyes with a threatening look, not knowing but that Edestone was still poking fun at him, or else, fearing the consequences of his rashness, was trying to ingratiate himself with his jailer. But after that glance at Edestone's face he felt confident that his apology was sincere. The Prussian's pride was too deeply wounded, however, for him to give in at once. "I am glad, Mr. Edestone," he replied stiffly, "that you realize that it is not customary to speak lightly of Germany in the presence of one of her officers." "I know," exclaimed Edestone, "it was extremely bad taste for me to criticize a civilization so much older than my own, but you will," he smiled, "forgive the cowboy I am sure when he tells you he is sorry." Then seeing by the expression of the officer's face that he had won the day: "Come now, Count von Hemelstein, let's be friends. I would not have liked you had you not resented my remarks, and I was a cad to take advantage of your absolutely defenceless position." The Count broke out into a hearty laugh, and jumping up took Edestone's extended hand. "You Americans," he vowed, all traces of his ill-feeling gone, "are the most remarkable chaps. I never saw a cowboy, but if they are anything like you they must be descended from some branch of the Hohenzollern family." "No, I cannot claim that distinction," laughed Edestone; "but I think perhaps there are many cowboys who if they knew and knowing cared to could boast of as distinguished a lineage. Did you ever breed dogs, Count? Well, if you have, you would know that the good points of the champion do not always appear in the oldest son of the oldest son, but spring up where we least expect to find them. And so it is I think with men; the good points are in the blood and will appear long after the man has lost his family tree. Sometimes they appear in individuals who show so strongly the traits of the champion that they scorn the existence of musty documents to tell them who they are." "Then, Mr. Edestone, you do not believe in our method of keeping our best blood where it belongs--at the top?" "Yes, I do most thoroughly approve of some of your methods. They are perhaps the best that have yet been devised, but you have not yet found the true method of following the centre of the stream. You sometimes dip from an eddy, simply because you believe that at some time it might have been in the middle, and you allow the deep dark red torrent to carry its saturated solution by you." "Well, Mr. Edestone," the Count smiled, "whether you are descended from a cowboy king or a business baron, you are deuced good company. I am glad that if I am to be cooped up here for two days it is with you instead of some conceited English duke, whose English grandfather was a fool and whose American grandfather was a knave--oh, I beg pardon. I am like poor little Alice in Wonderland when she was talking with the mouse. I seem always to insist upon talking about cats." Edestone laughed. "And now, Mr. Edestone, that you have been such a brick and apologized to me, I shall have to admit that I was rather rude in what I said to you. I think that the German Government has every intention of treating you fairly, and if you will only listen to reason, you will find that they are as anxious to bring this war to a close as is the United States. I know, however, that Germany intends to have her fair share of the earth; we are righting for our national existence, and we will not, and in fact we cannot afford to, stop at anything. If you really do not intend to sell your invention to any of the countries of Europe, you can at least use your influence with the United States to keep out of this muss, and let us settle our little difficulties in our own way." Edestone became serious. "My sole object, Count von Hemelstein," he said, "is to stop this war and settle these 'little difficulties,' as you call them, without further loss of life. If your Government will allow me to take back to England some assurance that it is now willing to discuss a settlement, I know that my Government will keep out of the discussion." The conversation was interrupted at this point by the stopping of the train at a station where the Count said he expected to take on the lunch baskets. With a comfortable lunch between them, and a bottle of wine to divide, they soon forgot their differences and laughed and joked like old friends. "It is a great pity, Mr. Edestone," said the Uhlan, "that you are not a German. I am sure the Kaiser would like you. He might even make you a Count, and then you could marry some woman of rank and with all your money you could be one of the greatest swells in Europe. He might make you an officer, too, so that you could wear a uniform and carry the decorations which he would confer upon you. Then when Americans came over to Kiel in their big yachts, you could tell the Emperor which were the real cowboy families and which were the Knickerbocker noblemen." "Well, that is exactly what I was thinking about you, Count von Hemelstein," Edestone chuckled. "If you would only come over to America I would get you a nice position in one of our large department stores, where your knowledge of German would be of the greatest assistance to you and soon put you at the top. Your German-Jew boss would invite you to his palace at Long Branch to dinner some night before a holiday and you would meet his beautiful daughter. She would take you into the big parlour, which would be open that night, and say to all her friends: 'I want you to shake hands with Count von Hemelstein, who is head salesman in Pa's M. & D. Department.' And she would be corrected by Ma, who would say: 'No, dearie, you mean the M. & W. Department.' "With your military training you would, by this time, have undoubtedly become a second lieutenant in one of our exclusive National Guard regiments, and after marrying 'Dearie,' you would come over to Germany and visit me at one of my castles on the Rhine. I would now have gambled away my entire fortune, and my son, the Baron von Edestone, would marry 'Dearie's' daughter." So they passed the time with good-humoured chaffing, carefully avoiding more serious subjects, and when they reached Berlin they had become fast friends. But as the train pulled into the German capital the Count leaned forward a trifle persuasively. "Now, Mr. Edestone," he said, "we have had a deuced good time together, and to tell the truth I am sorry to turn you over because I do not believe these old fellows on the General Staff will understand you as I do, but don't be an ass, I beg of you, and stand up against these wise old chaps. Do what they want you to do--they know better than you how to handle this complicated European situation. You will get no thanks for your trouble if you do not, and you may get your fingers rapped or even pretty severely pinched. My orders are to see you to some comfortable hotel, any that you may select. I would suggest the Hotel Adlon as perhaps the most comfortable. "After that I am to take you to call on General von Lichtenstein, who will hear what you have to say, and if in his judgment you should go higher he will pass you on." "I am to see nothing more of you?" asked Edestone. "My duty finishes when General von Lichtenstein takes you up. You will, of course, be watched and your every movement will be recorded, but that will not be my duty, nor here in Berlin will you be at all annoyed by it. Now that you are in Germany, you will be looked upon as a friend and treated accordingly, unless you are found not to be. I have given you my card, and I will take great pleasure in introducing you at the clubs or helping you in any way so long as it is consistent with my duty." "You are extremely kind, and I appreciate it very much, Count von Hemelstein." "Now above all things," warned the Count, and his tone was very impressive, "if by any chance you should be ordered to appear before His Imperial Majesty, please be careful what you say. You have said things to me in the last two days which, understanding you as I do, I could overlook, but I would no more think of repeating them while you are in Germany than I would think of flying. They were not of a nature that would make it my duty to report them, but they might get you into no end of trouble. For instance, you would not be so foolish as to intimate that the Hohenzollern family is not in the middle of the 'big stream.'" He smiled in spite of himself. Then as the train rolled into the station he took Edestone's hand and said: "Auf wiedersehen, my friend. I must now assume my other role of your escort of honour. Speak German," he suggested quickly as the guards came into the car; "you will be less apt to be annoyed." Edestone was conducted hastily through the station, where automobiles waited to whisk him and his entire party off to the hotel. At his request, the trunks containing all his apparatus were sent to the American Embassy. He was not as familiar with Berlin as he was with the other capitals of Europe, but if he had not known that Germany was engaged in a most desperate war, and millions of her sons were being sacrificed, there was nothing that he saw as he rushed through the city that would have suggested it. He was received at the hotel with extreme politeness, but it was the politeness that was insulting. The proprietor, waiters, and even the bell-boys treated him with poorly concealed contempt, and though he spoke to them in perfect German, would always answer in English, as if to show him that they knew he was of that despised race. Count von Hemelstein left him with the understanding that he would call for him in the morning and conduct him to General von Lichtenstein. _ |
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