"As to Princess Uriassof, she had been preceded by a courier, who had burst into indignant exclamations at the sight of the Munich furniture and had demanded genuine antiques. The professor smiled, and summoned a furniture dealer and his cashier. Followed the princess with twenty-three boxes and six servants. She was enormously stout, cried the whole day long, and yearned to reduce her figure.
"When the lift that was to take her down to the bathroom was not in front of her door at the very second when she left her room, she used to stamp her foot in anger, pull her maid's hair and shout:
"'What? I have to wait; I, Princess Uriassof?'
"That was the kind of patient we
had. Only once there came to my floor a young fellow from the Argentine who really had something wrong with his liver. I said to him, 'You are not well; you would do better to go and see a doctor.'
"Towards the 24th of July the newspapers seemed to cause the noble clients of Wiesdorf sanatorium considerable anxiety. The note to Servia, the letters they received from their homes, the clatter of arms which was beginning to be heard throughout Europe, all began to point to a vague danger which could not, of course, affect their sacred persons, but might possibly hinder them from peacefully cultivating the sufferings which were so dear to them.
"The Duchess of Broadfield telegraphed to her nephew at the Foreign Office and got no answer. Princess Uriassof began to hold mysterious confabulations with her courier.
"The German doctors soon restored every one's confidence; 'Unser Friedens-Kaiser ... our peace-loving Emperor ... he is cruising on his yacht ... he has not the slightest thought of war.'
"The barometers of refreshment vendors are always at 'set-fair,' and Professor von Göteburg temporized with such authority and diplomacy that he managed to keep his international clientèle for another six days.
"However, the peace-loving Emperor returned only to send threatening telegrams, and on the 27th the danger became evident even to our guests' bird-like intellects.