The Hohenzollerns in America: Chapter 6

Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI

It is a year or nearly a year since I wrote in my memoirs,
and I only add to them now because things have happened
which mean that I shall never write any more.

Mr. Peters and I were married last autumn. He asked me
if I would marry him the day that he held the arm of my
chair in the boarding house where we used to live. At
first I never thought that Uncle William would permit
it, because of the hopeless difference of birth. But it
turned out that there was no difficulty at all. Uncle's
mind was always so wonderful that he could find a way
out of anything provided that he wanted to. So he conferred
on Mr. Peters an Order that raised him right up in birth
so that he came level with me. Uncle said that he could
have lifted him higher still if need be but that as I
was only, in our old life, of a younger branch of the
family, it was not necessary to lift Mr. Peters to the
very top. He takes precedence, Uncle said, just below
Uncle Henry of Prussia and just above an Archbishop.

It is so pleasant to think--now that poor Uncle William
is gone--that my marriage was with his full consent.

But even after Uncle William had given his formal consent,
I didn't want to get married till I could leave him
safely. Only he got along so well in his "territory" of
the Bowery from the very start that he was soon quite
all right. He used to go out every morning with his
trayful of badges and pencils and shoe-strings and he
was a success at once. All the people got to know him by
sight and they would say when they saw him, "Here comes
the Emperor," or "Here comes Old Dutch," and very often
there would be quite a little crowd round him buying his
things. Uncle regarded himself always as conferring a
great dignity on any one that he sold a badge to, but he
was very capricious and he had certain buttons and badges
that he would only part with as a very special favour
and honour. Uncle got on so fast that presently Cousin
Ferdinand decided that it would be all right to know him
again and so he came over and made a reconciliation and
took away Uncle's money,--it was all in small coins,--in
a bag to invest for him.

So when everything was all right with Uncle William, Mr.
Peters and I were married and it was on our wedding
morning that Uncle conferred the Order on my husband
which made me very proud. That was a year ago, and since
then we have lived in a very fine place of our own with
four rooms, all to ourselves, and a gallery at the back.
I have cooked all the meals and done all the work of our
apartment, except just at the time when our little boy
was born. We both think he is a very wonderful child. At
first I wanted to call him after the Hohenzollerns and
to name him William Frederick Charles Mary Augustus
Francis Felix, but somehow it seemed out of place and so
we have called him simply Joe Peters. I think it sounds
better. Uncle William drew up an act of abnegation of
Joe, whereby he gives up all claim to a reversion of the
throne of Prussia, Brunswick and Waldeck. I was sorry
for this at first but Uncle said that all the Hohenzollerns
had done it and had made just as great a sacrifice as
Joe has in doing it. But my husband says that under the
constitution of the United States, Joe can be President,
which I think I will like better.

It was one day last week that Uncle William met with the
accident that caused his death. He had walked far away
from his "territory" up to where the Great Park is,
because in this lovely spring weather he liked to wander
about. And he came to where there was a great crowd of
people gathered to see the unveiling of a new monument.
It is called the Lusitania Monument and it is put up in
memory of the people that were lost when one of our war
boats fought the English cruiser Lusitania. There were
a lot of soldiers lining the streets and regiments of
cavalry riding between. And it seems that when Uncle
William saw the crowd and the soldiers he was drawn nearer
and nearer by a sort of curiosity, and when he saw the
great white veil drawn away from the monument, and read
the word "Lusitania" that is carved in large letters
across the base, he screamed out in a sudden fear, and
clashed among the horses of the cavalry and was ridden
down.

They carried him to the hospital, but he never spoke
again, and died on the next day but one. My husband would
not let me go to see him, as he was not conscious and it
could do no good, but after Uncle William was dead they
let me see him in his coffin.

Lying there he seemed such a pitiful and ghastly lump of
clay that it seemed strange that he could, in his old
life, have vexed the world as he did.

I had thought that when Uncle William died there would
have been long accounts of him in the papers; at least
I couldn't help thinking so, by a sort of confusion of
mind, as it is hard to get used to things as they are
and to remember that our other life is unknown here and
that we are known only as ourselves.

But though I looked in all the papers I could find nothing
except one little notice, which I cut out of an evening
paper and which I put in here as a conclusion to my
memoirs.

   THE "EMPEROR" DEAD
   Unique Character of the East Side Passes Away
   A unique and interesting character, a familiar figure
   of the East Side of the City, has been lost from our
   streets with the death of William Hohen lost Thursday
   in the Pauper Hospital, to which he had been brought
   as the result of injuries sustained in a street accident
   at the Lusitania celebration. Hohen, who was about
   sixty-five years of age, was an immigrant out of
   Germany after the troubles of the Great War. He had
   been for a year or more a street pedler on the Bowery,
   where he sold souvenir buttons and various little
   trinkets. The old man appears to have been the victim
   of a harmless hallucination whereby he thought himself
   a person of Royal distinction and in his fancy converted
   the box of wares that he carried into Orders of Chivalry
   and decorations of Knighthood. The effect of this
   strange fancy was heightened by an attempt at military
   bearing which, comic though it was in so old and ragged
   a figure, was not without a touch of pathos. Some
   fancied resemblance to the former Kaiser had earned
   for Hohen the designation of the "Emperor," of which
   he appeared inordinately proud. But those who knew
   Hohen by sight assure us that the resemblance to the
   former ruler of Germany, who with all his faults made
   a splendid and imposing appearance, was of a purely
   superficial character. It would, alas! have been well
   for the world if the lot of William Hohenzollern had
   fallen on the lines of the simple and pathetic "Emperor"
   of the Bowery.

II.--With the Bolsheviks in Berlin
Two years ago as my readers will remember,--but of course
they don't,--I made a secret visit to Germany during the
height of the war. It was obviously quite impossible at
that time to disclose the means whereby I made my way
across the frontier. I therefore adopted the familiar
literary device of professing to have been transported
to Germany in a dream. In that state I was supposed to
be conducted about the country by my friend Count Boob
von Boobenstein, whom I had known years before as a waiter
in Toronto, to see GERMANY FROM WITHIN, and to report
upon it in the Allied press.
What I wrote attracted some attention. So the German
Government--feeling, perhaps, that the prestige of their
own spy system was at stake--published a white paper,
--or a green paper,--I forget which,--in denial of all
my adventures and disclosures. In this they proved (1)
that all entry into Germany by dreams had been expressly
forbidden of the High General Command; (2) that astral
bodies were prohibited and (3) that nobody else but the
Kaiser was allowed to have visions. They claimed therefore
(1) that my article was a fabrication and (2) that for
all they knew it was humorous. There the matter ended
until it can be taken up at the General Peace Table.
But as soon as I heard that the People's Revolution had
taken place in Berlin I determined to make a second visit.
This time I had no difficulty about the frontier whatever.
I simply put on the costume of a British admiral and
walked in.
"Three Cheers for the British Navy!" said the first
official whom I met. He threw his hat in the air and the
peasants standing about raised a cheer. It was my first
view of the marvellous adaptability of this great people.
I noticed that many of them were wearing little buttons
with pictures of Jellicoe and Beatty.
At my own request I was conducted at once to the nearest
railway station.
"So your Excellency wishes to go to Berlin?" said the
stationmaster.
"Yes," I replied, "I want to see something of the people's
revolution."
The stationmaster looked at his watch.
"That Revolution is over," he said.
"Too bad!" I exclaimed.
"Not at all. A much better one is in progress, quite the
best Revolution that we have had. It is called--Johann,
hand me that proclamation of yesterday--the Workmen and
Soldiers Revolution."
"What's it about?" I asked.
"The basis of it," said the stationmaster, "or what we
Germans call the Fundamental Ground Foundation, is
universal love. They hanged all the leaders of the Old
Revolution yesterday."
"When can I get a train?" I inquired.
"Your Excellency shall have a special train at once,
Sir," he continued with a sudden burst of feeling, while
a tear swelled in his eye. "The sight of your uniform
calls forth all our gratitude. My three sons enlisted in
our German Navy. For four years they have been at Kiel,
comfortably fed, playing dominos. They are now at home
all safe and happy. Had your brave navy relaxed its
vigilance for a moment those boys might have had to go
out on the sea, a thing they had never done. Please God,"
concluded the good old man, removing his hat a moment,
"no German sailor now will ever have to go to sea."
I pass over my journey to Berlin. Interesting and varied
as were the scenes through which I passed they gave me
but little light upon the true situation of the country:
indeed I may say without exaggeration that they gave me
as little--or even more so--as the press reports of our
talented newspaper correspondents. The food situation
seemed particularly perplexing. A well-to-do merchant
from Bremen who travelled for some distance in my train
assured me that there was plenty of food in Germany,
except of course for the poor. Distress, he said, was
confined entirely to these. Similarly a Prussian gentleman
who looked very like a soldier, but who assured me with
some heat that he was a commercial traveller, told me
the same thing: There were no cases of starvation, he
said, except among the very poor.
The aspect of the people too, at the stations and in the
towns we passed, puzzled me. There were no uniforms, no
soldiers. But I was amazed at the number of commercial
travellers, Lutheran ministers, photographers, and so
forth, and the odd resemblance they presented, in spite
of their innocent costumes, to the arrogant and ubiquitous
military officers whom I had observed on my former visit.
But I was too anxious to reach Berlin to pay much attention
to the details of my journey.
Even when I at last reached the capital, I arrived as I
had feared, too late.
"Your Excellency," said a courteous official at the
railway station, to whom my naval uniform acted as a
sufficient passport. "The Revolution of which you speak
is over. Its leaders were arrested yesterday. But you
shall not be disappointed. There is a better one. It is
called the Comrades' Revolution of the Bolsheviks. The
chief Executive was installed yesterday."
"Would it be possible for me to see him?" I asked.
"Nothing simpler, Excellency," he continued as a tear
rose in his eye. "My four sons,--"
"I know," I said; "your four sons are in the German Navy.
It is enough. Can you take me to the Leader?"
"I can and will," said the official. "He is sitting now
in the Free Palace of all the German People, once usurped
by the Hohenzollern Tyrant. The doors are guarded by
machine guns. But I can take you direct from here through
a back way. Come."
We passed out from the station, across a street and
through a maze of little stairways, and passages into
the heart of the great building that had been the offices
of the Imperial Government.
"Enter this room. Do not knock," said my guide. "Good bye."
In another moment I found myself face to face with the
chief comrade of the Bolsheviks.
He gave a sudden start as he looked at me, but instantly
collected himself.
He was sitting with his big boots up on the mahogany
desk, a cigar at an edgeways angle in his mouth. His hair
under his sheepskin cap was shaggy, and his beard stubbly
and unshaven. His dress was slovenly and there was a big
knife in his belt. A revolver lay on the desk beside him.
I had never seen a Bolshevik before but I knew at sight
that he must be one.
"You say you were here in Berlin once before?" he
questioned, and he added before I had time to answer:
"When you speak don't call me 'Excellency' or 'Sereneness'
or anything of that sort; just call me 'brother' or
'comrade.' This is the era of freedom. You're as good as
I am, or nearly."
"Thank you," I said.
"Don't be so damn polite," he snarled. "No good comrade
ever says 'thank you.' So you were here in Berlin before?"
"Yes," I answered, "I was here writing up Germany from
Within in the middle of the war."
"The war, the war!" he murmured, in a sort of wail or
whine. "Take notice, comrade, that I weep when I speak
of it. If you write anything about me be sure to say that
I cried when the war was mentioned. We Germans have been
so misjudged. When I think of the devastation of France
and Belgium I weep."
He drew a greasy, red handkerchief from his pocket and
began to sob. "To think of the loss of all those English
merchant ships!"
"Oh, you needn't worry," I said, "it's all going to be
paid for."
"Oh I hope so, I do hope so," said the Bolshevik chief.
"What a regret it is to us Germans to think that
unfortunately we are not able to help pay for it; but
you English--you are so generous--how much we have admired
your noble hearts--so kind, so generous to the
vanquished..."
His voice had subsided into a sort of whine.
But at this moment there was a loud knocking at the door.
The Bolshevik hastily wiped the tears from his face and
put away his handkerchief.
"How do I look?" he asked anxiously. "Not humane, I hope?
Not soft?"
"Oh, no," I said, "quite tough."
"That's good," he answered. "That's good. But am I tough
ENOUGH?"
He hastily shoved his hands through his hair.
"Quick," he said, "hand me that piece of chewing tobacco.
Now then. Come in!"
The door swung open.
A man in a costume much like the leader's swaggered into
the room. He had a bundle of papers in his hands, and
seemed to be some sort of military secretary.
"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."

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