The Assault: Germany Before the Outbreak and England in War-TimeWile, Frederic William
History
The Assault: Germany Before the Outbreak and England in War-Time
Wile, Frederic William
World War, 1914-1918
I was genuinely sorry I had never met Herr Richter--probably he did not
live in the Red River Valley, which was the only part of Minnesota I
knew, I explained. I knew some Richters in my native county of La
Porte, Indiana, but they had never claimed the honor, to my knowledge,
of having a brother in the Kaiser’s police. While _Schutzmann_ Richter
and I were doing our best to discover that the world is small, noise of
fresh commotion, such as had greeted my own arrival at the station,
ascended from the street. Apparently a fresh "bag" had come in. A
second later, of all people on earth, who should be pushed into the
room, with three policemen at his neck and arms, but my very disheveled
friend, Tower. He was hatless, his collar and tie were awry, every hair
of his Goethe-like blond head was on end, and he cut altogether the
figure of a very much perturbed young man. There were no mirrors about,
so I can not say with certainty how I myself looked, but I am sure I
could have easily been mistaken for Tower’s twin at that moment.
Partners in misery and anxiety we certainly were. Tower, it appeared,
was denounced to the spy-hunters at the Adlon by a chauffeur he had
engaged to drive him a day or two before--the man who piloted the
machine which was hired out to Adlon guests at fancy rates per hour.
Presently the chauffeur himself bounded into the room, shouting like a
madman. "Now we’ve got him--the damned English cur!" he snarled, shaking
his fist, first in Tower’s face, and then, recognizing me, in mine, with
an oath and a "You, too, pig-dog!" The chauffeur now ranted his reasons
for denouncing both Tower and me. "I’m an old African soldier!" he
yelled. "I know these contemptible _Engländer_. This Tower (he called
it Toever, which was the way Germans used phonetically to pronounce a
former American ambassador’s name) is the notorious _Times_
correspondent!" Tower impetuously denied this soft impeachment, and
pointed out that instead of being the Thunderer’s representative, he was
the correspondent of the _Daily News_, "the only Germanophile English
newspaper." Tower himself was never Germanophile, but it was grasping
at a legitimate straw so to describe his London paper. I could not
conscientiously identify _The Daily Mail_ as _deutschfreundlich_, or, I
regretfully mused, it might be the means of saving my neck.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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