'I didn't want to answer those yellow-skinned scoundrels. I wanted to draw a caricature and sent it back. They wanted the Fortress? I'll show them the Fortress!'
There was general laughter. The youths, under the soothing influence of plentiful liqueurs, forgot their positions as junior officers, and shouted:
'Splendid, sir, splendid; quite right. Your health, sir.'
'And do you know, gentlemen, they took me for a foreigner—a Swiss by birth? By heavens! I am not lying. Quite recently I got a letter from Austria, from some Stössel or other who pretended he was proud of his relation in Arthur. Others write that I only became a Russian subject in 1893. I have got the letter!'
Again there was laughter. The General was in the best of form. Whether he was talking seriously or not I do not know. Presently he thought it was time to return to Arthur, and told me to accompany him: we rode through the arsenal.
'Look what a number of captured guns there are! I took all those in the Chinese War.'
All these guns passed into our hands when we peacefully occupied Arthur!
FOOTNOTES:
[16] This letter was from the German Emperor to his naval attachés—whom he ordered to leave the Fortress. One of them, Captain Gilgenheim, was killed by Chinese pirates on his way from Arthur to Chifu.