"Wait a moment, Herr von Eitelwurmer," he said when his mirth had subsided. "The conference won't start for some time. There's a fellow wanting an audience--an author, curse him! I'll let the press and their parasites depending upon it know that there is a censorship. This fellow wrote a book: _With von Scheer off Jutland_ he called it. Since we must do something to justify our existence I smashed it. The fellow had no influence, so what matters? And now, I suppose, he's kicking. Send him in, you thick-headed numbskull; send him in." The author of the banned book entered the room. He was of short stature, being barely five feet two in height, inclined to corpulence, and very white-faced. His heavy, bristling, up-turned moustache contrasted incongruously with his small beady eyes that peered through a large pair of spectacles of enormous magnifying powers. For quite two minutes Kapitan-leutnant Schneider hurled a torrent of abuse at the head of his caller, punctuating every sentence with furious oaths. Yet, somewhat to the Censor's surprise, the little man showed no signs of quailing under the onslaught. "Might I ask what there is in the book to which you take exception?" he asked. "The whole of it," thundered the despot. "Could not certain portions be revised?" "No; I object to it in its entirety." "Then, since the story is based upon Admiral von Scheer's report you object to the official dispatch?" For a moment the Press Censor was taken aback. It never entered into his head that this meek and mild man could or would put a poser like this. "No; I won't say that," replied Schneider. "But either you are a perverter of the truth or you know too much. The work has had the highest Admiralty consideration, and, as you ought to know, censorship has only one object in view, namely, the public interest. If you are ordered to say that black is white you must say it. You haven't, and you must abide by the consequences." "One moment," interposed the still unruffled man. "Can you give me one solitary instance of what you object to in the book?" The kapitan-leutnant puckered his shaggy eyebrows. "No, I cannot," he replied, with considerable mildness. "I have forgotten all about it." "And that is what you term the highest Admiralty consideration," added the author cuttingly. "Very good; I will not trouble you further at present, except to show you this: a commendation from no less a personage than Admiral von Tirpitz." "Himmel!" gasped the astonished official. "Why did you not tell me this before?" "Because I had not the chance," replied the caller gathering up his papers. "Good afternoon." "You are perhaps sorry I waited?" remarked von Eitelwurmer, when the two were again alone. Schneider frowned. "If the fool had only made out that we had won a great victory all would have been well," he replied. "The Press and its satellites----"