John started, looked up at the man. His face was intensely earnest. How should one in his humble calling have news of such import? And yet at Dresden he had been warned by another waiter, and warned truly.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Yes, sir, they're all going into it. Europe will be covered with armies!"
"When?"
"In a few hours! Now, sir! Oh, I can't say any more!"
He hurried away, leaving John convinced that he told the truth. It was stunning, appalling, unbelievable, impossible, but he believed it nevertheless. There were underground channels of communication and true news might come by the way of the kitchen as well as the palace. He was absolutely convinced that he had heard a fact. Now he knew the cause of that heaviness and depression in the atmosphere. Well the clouds might gather, when such a thunderbolt as a general war was going to fall!
He immediately hunted up his uncle and Mr. Anson who had not yet left the hotel, and told them what he had heard. Conviction seized them also.
"It's come at last, this European war! after a thousand false alarms, it's come!" said the Senator, "and my boy, Vienna is no place for three honest Americans who do not work in the dark. I say it, and I say it without fear of contradiction, that it behooves us to flee westward with all the speed we can."
"You won't hear any contradiction from me," said Mr. Anson. "Vienna is a fine city, but nothing becomes it more than our leaving it. Which way do we go?"
"There's a train in two hours for Salzburg and Munich," suggested John.