One evening Al Lippincott and I strayed away from the bunch, and wandered into a sort of open air garden. There was a theatre, with a vaudeville show that the Watch and Ward Society at home would have closed up the first night. But the music was fine, so we picked out a table and ordered a light lunch of pickled pigs feet and sauerkraut, and were attending strictly to business when the manager, followed by two German army officers, walked up, and informed us we'd have to give up our seats. Seems they had some fool rule about civilians having to clear out if army officers wanted their table.
Now Al has always had dyspepsia, and the pickled pigs feet and sauerkraut had not done his stomach any good, and I had been "verbotened" almost to death ever since I had been in Berlin so we told them to run away and play, and turned our backs.
The next instant someone grabbed Al by the coat collar and gave him a shake.
"Do you not understand pig dog it is verboten?" a voice said.
Al wrenched free, and saw it was the younger of the two officers who had given him the shaking. He was a pasty faced, pimperly, fair-haired young man, with a monocle in one eye, and a waist that looked like it was made that way by corsets, and he had a 45 calibre sword dangling by his side that was bigger than any the Crusaders ever carried.
If he hadn't said "verboten," Al might have given him a good bawling out and let it go at that, but "verboten" to us by that time was like waving a red flag in front of a he cow, so Al gave him a good shove. The officer tripped over his sword and sat down ker-splash in a plate of hot soup an old lady was eating at the next table.
Waiters came running from all directions, but Al and I grabbed up a couple of chairs and they danced around in a circle not daring to close, while the soup spiller and his friend sputtered with rage.
"I am disgraced," yelled the one Al capsized.
"I want to fight. I would kill you, but you are not titled. I'm disgraced."
"You're a disgrace, all right," Al interrupted, "but if you want a fight, I guess we can help you out. I'm the Earl of Dover," he continued kicking a waiter in the shin who had come too near for safety, "and my friend here is the Duke of Lynn, so if you know some nice quiet place where we can settle this without gloves, lead on, we're with you."