A discreet tap upon the door interrupted the official's words.
"Enter!" he bellowed.
A messenger crept stealthily into the room. By his manner it seemed evident that he expected to have a book hurled at his head. It was one of the kapitan-leutnant's usual plaisanteries, but on this occasion von Eitelwurmer acted as a moral shield.
The Censor took the proffered paper, read it and burst into a roar of laughter.
"Wait a moment, Herr von Eitelwurmer," he said when his mirth had subsided. "The conference won't start for some time. There's a fellow wanting an audience—an author, curse him! I'll let the press and their parasites depending upon it know that there is a censorship. This fellow wrote a book: With von Scheer off Jutland he called it. Since we must do something to justify our existence I smashed it. The fellow had no influence, so what matters? And now, I suppose, he's kicking. Send him in, you thick-headed numbskull; send him in."
The author of the banned book entered the room. He was of short stature, being barely five feet two in height, inclined to corpulence, and very white-faced. His heavy, bristling, up-turned moustache contrasted incongruously with his small beady eyes that peered through a large pair of spectacles of enormous magnifying powers.
For quite two minutes Kapitan-leutnant Schneider hurled a torrent of abuse at the head of his caller, punctuating every sentence with furious oaths. Yet, somewhat to the Censor's surprise, the little man showed no signs of quailing under the onslaught.
"Might I ask what there is in the book to which you take exception?" he asked.
"The whole of it," thundered the despot.
"Could not certain portions be revised?"