L.P.M. : The End of the Great WarBarney, J. Stewart (John Stewart)
Science
L.P.M. : The End of the Great War
Barney, J. Stewart (John Stewart)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
He let it be known that he had absolutely nothing hidden on his person
by taking off all of his clothes and going to bed, and would
apparently sleep while watching the spies go through them. They seemed
to enjoy this little game so much that he would sometimes play it once
or twice a day, varying it by taking a bath or having James give him
massage.
They never seemed to suspect that he was playing with them, but would
stand around and pounce down on his clothes, each time searching them
thoroughly as if they had discovered something entirely new, when they
had just turned the same things inside out within an hour.
While waiting here, too, he came to learn how intensely bitter was the
feeling against Americans among Germans of all classes. They regarded
themselves as superior beings, he found, and when they first noted his
splendid physique, would not believe but that he must have German
blood in his veins. When he convinced them, however, that he was of
pure Anglo-Saxon stock, Virginia bred--a thorough-paced “Yankee,” as
they called it--even the peasants treated him as the dirt beneath
their feet.
But at last word came from the German General Staff. He was “sealed,
stamped, and marked, ‘not to be opened until after delivery in
Berlin.’” He was shown greater consideration now; but it was a
consideration which rather unpleasantly reminded him of that shown by
the keeper to a condemned prisoner in presenting him with his new
clothes in which to be executed.
He and his men and all his belongings--the latter carefully listed in
triplicate--were put into a private car, and locked in, like a rich
American with the smallpox whom they were sending out of the country;
while, to add to his comfort, he was told that Count von Hemelstein
was to act as his escort.
As they started on the journey, Edestone had an opportunity of seeing
in his true character for the first time the man whom he had so
cleverly outwitted in the telephone booth, and he found it hard work
to identify the smart cavalry officer as the grimy London taxi-driver
of a few days before.
The Count was a big, splendid-looking fellow, who rather affected an
American manner in order to hide the fact that he had been educated
both at school and college in England. Without his uniform, he would
have been taken anywhere for an Englishman, blond, blue-eyed giant
that he was, with as beautiful a moustache and as winning a smile as
was ever given to the hero of a love story. He wore the uniform of a
Colonel of Uhlans, which well set off his handsome figure. In fact, he
was as noble-looking an Uhlan as ever, either before or after
marriage, broke the heart of a rich brewer’s daughter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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