L.P.M. : The End of The Great War Part 18

"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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sume 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 Emba.s.sy. 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.

CHAPTER XX

GENERAL VON LICHTENSTEIN

That afternoon, Edestone took occasion to call at the American Emba.s.sy, where he found that Amba.s.sador Gerard, broken down by the strain of the first few months of the war, during which he had accomplished such wonderful work, had been forced to go to Wiesbaden for a rest.

The Amba.s.sador had left in charge Mr. William Jones, First Secretary of Legation, who with his wife was occupying the Emba.s.sy and representing the United States. The doctors had warned the Secretary that the Amba.s.sador's condition was such that he must have absolute quiet, and that he should under no circ.u.mstances be troubled or even communicated with in regard to affairs of state. Jones was, therefore, to all intents and purposes the Amba.s.sador.

This suited Edestone's plans perfectly, for Jones was only a few years older than himself and he had known him intimately since boyhood.

His friend received him with almost the delight of a man who has been marooned on a desert island and was pining for the sight of a friendly face.

"Well, well, Jack," he said, "what foolish thing is this that you are up to now? We have received the most extraordinary instructions from the State Department--I gather that the Secretary of State has either lost his mind or that you have got him under a spell, and then with your hypnotic power have suggested that he order us to do things which we could not do in peace times and which are simply out of the question now. Don't you people over home understand that these Germans, from the Kaiser to the lowest peasant, are all in such an exalted state of Anglophobia that they regard everyone with distrust, and are especially suspicious of us. My advice to you, as Lawrence would say,"--referring to one of his under-secretaries, a college mate and intimate friend of Edestone's,--"is to 'can that high-brow stuff' and come down to earth."

"Now, speaking for myself as your friend, I advise you to go and see General von Lichtenstein, whom you will find a delightful old gentleman but as wise as Solomon's aunt. Talk to him like a sweet little boy, and then come back to the Legation and stop with us while you see something of the war. I can take you to within one hundred and fifty miles of the firing line and show you the crack regiments of Germany looking as happy and sleek as if they were merely out for one of the yearly manoeuvres. I would have difficulty, though, in showing you any of the wounded, as they are very careful to see that we are not offended by any of the horrors that one reads of in the American papers."

"Berlin is being forced to fiddle, eh, while Germany is burning?"

"Yes, she suggests the hysterical condition of Paris just before the Reign of Terror, while I, like Benjamin Franklin, in 'undertaker's clothes' in the midst of barbaric splendour, wait for the inevitable."

"Is your face, like his, 'as well known as that of the moon'?" asked Edestone.

"Yes, but a thing to be insulted, not like his to be painted on the lids of snuff-boxes, as souvenirs for kings.

"Or if that does not amuse you, Mrs. Jones can introduce you to some of the prettiest girls you ever saw."

"Big, strong, fat, and healthy, I suppose, with red faces looking as if they had just been washed with soap and water."

"Well, then we might have some golf, and if you will give me half a stroke, I will play you $5 a hole and $50 on the game. Or if that is too rich for your blood, I will play you dollar Na.s.sau. In fact, Jack, I will do anything to get this foolish idea out of your head. These people can't see a joke at any time, but to try one now might put you into a very serious if not dangerous position. Now you go along and see Lawrence, as I have to look after some American refugees who are waiting in the outer office. You will dine with us tonight, of course."

Lawrence Stuyvesant, to whom the Secretary had referred, appeared at the door at that moment and beckoned to Edestone. He was one of those irrepressible Americans, born with an absolute lack of respect for anything that suggested convention, at home in any company and showing absolutely no preference. He would be found joking with the stokers in the engine room when he might be walking with the Admiral on the quarter-deck, flirting with a deaf old d.u.c.h.ess when he might be supping with the leader of the ballet. With a sense of humour that would have made his fortune on the stage, he spoke half-a-dozen languages and a dozen dialects. He could imitate the Kaiser or give a Yiddish dialect to a Chinaman. Light-hearted to a fault, he would make a joke at anyone's expense, preferably his own. An entertaining chap, but a rolling stone that could roll up hill or skip lightly over the surface of a placid lake with equal facility. He had already run through two considerable fortunes, and had been almost everything from a camel driver to a yacht's captain. Now he imagined himself to be a diplomat.

"Behold the dreamer cometh," he said in Yiddish dialect as Edestone approached, and grasping the inventor by both hands, dragged him into the other room, and began to ask questions so fast that a Chicago reporter, had he heard, would have died of sheer mortification.

After he had gotten all the information that he could pump, pull, and squeeze out of Edestone, he shook his head discouragingly.

"I am darn glad to see you, old chap," he said, "but I am sorry to hear that you have come over to try and reason with this bunch of nuts.

Don't you know they are so d.a.m.n conceited that if you were to tell them that every time you look at a German you see two men, they would believe you; and then as if they hated to lie to themselves, they would say perhaps it was an optical illusion. Tell them that G.o.d did not create anyone but the Germans and that he left the rest of the world to the students in his office, and they will give you a smile of a.s.sent."

Edestone smiled indulgently. "Tell them that when the Kaiser frowns every wheel in the United States stops and refuses to move until rea.s.sured by the German papers that it is but the frown of an indulgent father and not the thunder of their future War Lord, and they will give a knowing look. Tell them that only German is taught in our public schools, and that any child who does not double-cross himself at the mention of the name of any of the North German Lloyd steamers is taken out and shot, and they will say, 'Ach so?'

"But just you pull something about what a hit Brother Henry made in the United States, especially with the navy, and what a swell chance he would have of being elected Admiral when Dewey resigns, then look out!

Get under your umbrella and sit perfectly still until the storm pa.s.ses.

Keep well down in the trenches and don't expose anything that you do not want sent to the cleaners. For when one of these Dutchmen begins to splutter, there is nothing short of the U-29 that can stand the tidal wave of beer and sauerkraut which has been lying in wait for some unsuspecting neutral in their flabby jowls like nuts in a squirrel's cheek. They back-fire, skip, short-circuit, and finally blow up, and if you don't throw on a bucket or two of flattery quick, you've got a duel on your hands, which for an American in this country means that you get it going and coming."

Edestone, knowing Lawrence well, took what he said largely as a joke; but from his own observations and from what Jones had told him he felt convinced that there did not exist the kindest feeling for Americans in Berlin. Brus.h.i.+ng all this aside, he turned to Lawrence with a businesslike air:

"Where are the trunks that I sent to the Emba.s.sy?" he asked. "Have they got here yet?"

"Down in the bas.e.m.e.nt," Lawrence nodded.

"I'd like to get something out of them."

"Well, why look at me?" inquired Lawrence. "I'm no baggage smasher."

"It's a pity you're not," rejoined Edestone. "You would be better at that than you are at diplomacy. However, all I want is for you to have someone show me where they are."

"Fred, show the King of America where his royal impedimenta await his royal pleasure," Lawrence directed a young man with the manners of a Bowery boy, who appeared in answer to his summons.

With him Edestone went down to the trunks and took from one of them a small receiving instrument with a dial attachment similar to the one on top of the Deionizer, which he had dropped into the Channel. Then after a few words with his other friends in the Emba.s.sy, he went back to the hotel.

The next morning Count von Hemelstein called, and it was quite like meeting an old friend. Edestone was really sorry when, the Count leaving him at the door of General Headquarters said: "This is where I turn you over to my superiors. These are times that try men's souls, and you are now dealing with men who must win."

They had arrived on the stroke of the hour, and Edestone was quickly taken in charge and shown without a moment's delay into the presence of General von Lichtenstein. The General was a man whose age was impossible to tell. He was over sixty, but how much over one found it hard to estimate. He was erect and rather thin, and he wore his uniform with the care of a much younger man. The lines about his mouth and chin, which are such a sure index, were hidden by a full beard, white as snow and rather long. His high forehead was half covered by a huge shock of hair, also perfectly white, which was parted neatly on the side. His steel-blue eyes, looking out through a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, were bright, but were set so far back under his heavy brows that they looked very old, very wise, and almost mysterious.

When Edestone was brought into the room without any form of introduction, the General rose and greeted him in the most kind and fatherly manner.

"Good-morning, Mr. Edestone," he said in English with a marked accent.

"I am very glad to see you," and, putting out his hand with an air of simple kindness as if to lead him to a chair, he said: "Won't you sit down, sir?

"You must not mind if I treat you like a boy," he went on with a gentle smile; "you are about the age of my own son who was killed at Ypres. I am too old to fight any more, so they keep me here to entertain distinguished strangers like yourself," and he laughed quietly to himself, looking at Edestone as he might at a little boy whom he had just told that he had on a very pretty suit of clothes.

He picked up from his desk, a box of very large cigars, selected two, and, after looking very carefully at one to see that it was absolutely perfect, handed it without a word to Edestone. After he had watched with great interest to see that Edestone had lighted his cigar properly, he lighted his own.

"I see by the way you smoke that you are a good judge of tobacco. I have always understood that you Americans like very fresh cigars and smoke them immediately after they are made. I like them old myself."

"You are thinking of Cuba, perhaps," suggested Edestone.