In the midst of a group of his countrymen Henry J. Sherman stood, feet
wide apart and straw hat cocked back over his bald spot. He was
narrating the breathless incidents of the night's dark hour:
"Yes, sir, a soldier comes to our rooms about three-thirty o'clock and
hammers on our door. 'Everybody in this hotel's under arrest,' he
says. 'Kindly dress as soon as possible and report to Major Bishop in
the office.' And we not five hours before the guests of General and
Lady Crandall at Government House. What d'you think of that for a
quick change?
"Well, gentlemen, we piled down-stairs--with me minus a collar button
and havin' to hold my collar down behind with my hand. And what do we
find? This chap Almer, with a face like a side of cream cheese,
standing in the middle of a bunch of soldiers with guns; another bunch
of soldiers surroundin' his Arab boy, who's as innocent a little fellah
as ever you set eyes on; and this Major Bishop walkin' up and down, all
excited, and sayin' something about somebody's got a scheme to blow up
the whole fleet out there. Which might have been done, he says, if it
wasn't for that fellah Woodhouse we'd had dinner with just that very
evening."
"Who's some sort of a spy. I knew it all the time, you see." Mrs.
Sherman was quick to claim her share of her fellow tourists' attention.
"Only he's a British spy set to watch the Germans. Major Bishop told
me that in confidence after it was all over--said he'd never met a man
with the nerve this Captain Woodhouse has."
"Better whisper that word 'spy' soft," Henry J. admonished sotto voce.
"We're not out of this plagued Europe yet, and we've had about all the
excitement we can stand; don't want anybody to arrest us again just the
minute we're sailin'. But, as I was sayin', there we all stood,
foolish as goats, until in comes General Crandall, followed by this
Woodhouse chap. 'Excuse me, people, for causing you this little
inconvenience,' the general says. 'Major Bishop has taken his orders
too literal. If you'll go back to your rooms and finish dressin' I'll
have the army bus down here to take you to the quay. The Hotel
Splendide's accommodations have been slightly disarranged by the arrest
of its worthy proprietor.' So back we go, and--by cricky, mother, here
comes the general and Mrs. Crandall now!"
Henry J. broke through the ring of passengers, and with a waving of his
hat, rushed to the curb. A limousine bearing the governor, his lady
and Jane Gerson, and with two bulky hampers strapped to the baggage
rack behind, was just drawing up.
"Why, of course we're down here to see you off--and bid you Godspeed to
little old Kewanee!" Lady Crandall was quick to anticipate the
Shermans' greetings. General Crandall, beaming indulgently on the
group of homegoers, had a hand for each.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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