"What funny tin-pot things they look!" said Little Yeogh Wough. "Now I know why all the toy ships we have that are made in Germany never look a bit like ours. They don't look so professional, somehow. Perhaps it's because we're not used to them. I hope they'll let us go on board them."
"Perhaps they will, as there are five or six members of Parliament among us and the head of the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard," I said quite confidently.
But it was notified to us early by the Kiel authorities that the two warships were, as one might say, in déshabille, and not tidy enough and trim enough to be inspected. So we had to content ourselves with walking about the town.
Little Yeogh Wough took a snapshot of the Hohenzollern from the jetty, and then walked along with pride and satisfaction on his handsome face because he had managed to do this without attracting anybody's notice. Then we turned up the long main street and saw a good many pretty villas that were charming enough to make one feel one could live in them quite comfortably for two or three months of the summer.
"It is a very nice place," I said, as we passed the last of these tree-embowered villas and began to walk up the hilly main street where the shops begin. "Here's your tobacco shop, by the way."
I stayed outside on the pavement while Little Yeogh Wough went in with his father. When they came out a German officer came out also, treated me to a long, close look and swung on his way.
"He stared hard at me in the shop and then said: 'You're English, are you?'" the boy of my heart informed me. "I told him I was, and he looked hard at me all over again. I felt quite glad that I'd come out without my glasses on."
I felt glad, too, as I looked at his bright face.
How queerly white his lucky lock showed in the sunshine! Surely nothing very bad could ever happen to him in life when he had a lock like that!
"I'm sorry to have to say it, but this old watchmaker fellow here has put my watch right twice as well as an ordinary watchmaker in this sort of town at home in England would do it, and has done it in half the time, into the bargain," his father said presently, emerging from another little shop. "It's astonishing how capable these Germans are. It's a pity they aren't a little better at sanitation. What awful smells there are all over this town!"