II.—With the Bolsheviks in Berlin
Two years ago as my readers will remember,—but of course they don't,—I made a secret visit to Germany during the height of the war. It was obviously quite impossible at that time to disclose the means whereby I made my way across the frontier. I therefore adopted the familiar literary device of professing to have been transported to Germany in a dream. In that state I was supposed to be conducted about the country by my friend Count Boob von Boobenstein, whom I had known years before as a waiter in Toronto, to see GERMANY FROM WITHIN, and to report upon it in the Allied press.
What I wrote attracted some attention. So the German Government—feeling, perhaps, that the prestige of their own spy system was at stake—published a white paper, —or a green paper,—I forget which,—in denial of all my adventures and disclosures. In this they proved (1) that all entry into Germany by dreams had been expressly forbidden of the High General Command; (2) that astral bodies were prohibited and (3) that nobody else but the Kaiser was allowed to have visions. They claimed therefore (1) that my article was a fabrication and (2) that for all they knew it was humorous. There the matter ended until it can be taken up at the General Peace Table.
But as soon as I heard that the People's Revolution had taken place in Berlin I determined to make a second visit.
This time I had no difficulty about the frontier whatever. I simply put on the costume of a British admiral and walked in.
"Three Cheers for the British Navy!" said the first official whom I met. He threw his hat in the air and the peasants standing about raised a cheer. It was my first view of the marvellous adaptability of this great people. I noticed that many of them were wearing little buttons with pictures of Jellicoe and Beatty.
At my own request I was conducted at once to the nearest railway station.
"So your Excellency wishes to go to Berlin?" said the stationmaster.