“Is the Kaiser with his seventeen children and his respectable Frau?” giggled Feather. “All that he cares about is that women shall be made to remember that they are born for nothing but to cook and go to church and have babies. One doesn’t wonder at the clothes they wear.” It was not a month after this, however, when Lord Coombe, again warming himself at his old friend’s fire, gave her a piece of information. “The German teacher, Herr Wiese, has hastily returned to his own country,” he said. She lifted her eyebrows inquiringly. “He found himself suspected of being a spy,” was his answer. “With most excellent reason. Some first-rate sketches of fortifications were found in a box he left behind him in his haste. The country—all countries—are sown with those like him. Mild spectacled students and clerks in warehouses and manufactories are weighing and measuring resources; round-faced, middle-aged governesses are making notes of conversation and of any other thing which may be useful. In time of war—if they were caught at what are now their simple daily occupations—they would be placed against a wall and shot. As it is, they are allowed to play about among us and slip away when some fellow worker’s hint suggests it is time.” “German young men are much given to spending a year or so here in business positions,” the Duchess wore a thoughtful air. “That has been going on for a decade or so. One recognizes their Teuton type in shops and in the streets. They say they come to learn the language and commercial methods.” “Not long ago a pompous person, who is the owner of a big shop, pointed out to me three of them among his salesmen,” Coombe said. “He plumed himself on his astuteness in employing them. Said they worked for low wages and cared for very little else but finding out how things were done in England. It wasn’t only business knowledge they were after, he said; they went about everywhere—into factories and dock yards, and public buildings, and made funny little notes and sketches of things they didn’t understand—so that they could explain them in Germany. In his fatuous, insular way, it pleased him to regard them rather as a species of aborigines benefiting by English civilization. The English Ass and the German Ass are touchingly alike. The shade of difference is that the English Ass’s sublime self-satisfaction is in the German Ass self-glorification. The English Ass smirks and plumes himself; the German Ass blusters and bullies and defies.” “Do you think of engaging another German Master for the little girl?” the Duchess asked the question casually. “I have heard of a quiet young woman who has shown herself thorough and well-behaved in a certain family for three years. Perhaps she also will disappear some day, but, for the present, she will serve the purpose.”