"Howdy, Franz?" said Bertha, drawing her kimono tighter over her bosom. And to her mother: "I couldn't sleep after what Uncle Majesty told us to-night. So I came down. You are not angry, Mamma? Don't scold, Mamma," she added, observing her mother's stern face.
Frau Krupp patted the child's head. "Fate!" she said to Franz. "Voilà, the head of the Krupp firm. Continue."
The engineer bowed. "With your permission, my chief," he said, addressing Bertha.
"Anything you please, you big booby," laughed the child. Then, seriously: "I am your chief, indeed I am. Think of bossing a big chap like you and that arrogant Herr Braun, too!" She motioned Franz to bend down, and whispered in his ear, "Wouldn't it be fun to sack him?"
"No nonsense, child, if you want to stay up," Frau Krupp was very much in earnest, and to Franz she said: "Go on; I am impatient to hear the rest."
"I was telling your mother about some business Herr Braun wants to entrust me with," explained Franz, looking at the child.
"How very interesting," yawned Bertha; "but you can't get me to listen. Ah, there, I see one of Barbara's dolls. I will play with it till you get through; then supper. I didn't eat dinner with Fraulein," she added, looking at her mother, "and there's such a goneness here," touching her abdomen. The greatest force for destruction in the world, yet a child to all intents and purposes!
"Proceed," said the Baroness to Franz.
"With the chief's permission," began Franz formally; then, as if trying to make his disclosure as indefinite as possible: "You heard about the order from King Leopold, secured by the War-Lord's Brussels ambassador?"
The Baroness nodded, and Bertha took her eyes momentarily from her plaything. "Big, big guns," she said, describing a circle in the air by turning the doll's arm and hand round and round; "my apanage, poor Papa said. Glad you reminded me. I must tell Herr Braun about it. All the profits are to go to my children's hospital." She sat the doll astride her knee, bobbing her up and down, then burst out laughing. "See that head-dress, Franz, and her gown and apron—the Belgian colours. Looks like a coincidence, doesn't it?"