I argued in vain, and only made my case worse by citing as an instance of German official turpitude the staff surgeon's neglect of me.
"But he tells me you refuse to be treated by him!" he answered. "He says you enter his hospital and are insolent if he happens to be too busy to attend to you at once. He says you refuse to let a native orderly dress your wound!"
He had been entertained to one meal at the commandant's house on the hill, and regaled by awful accounts of our ferocity. I did not succeed in inserting as much as the thin end of a different view until he asked me how a man's name could be professor Schillingschen and his wife's Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon.
"I don't understand about titles," he said. "Shouldn't she take his name, or else he hers, or something?"
I assured him that marriage had never as much as entered the head of either of them.
"They're simply living together," I said. "He's a cynical brute. She's a designing female!"
The missionary mind recoiled and refused to believe me. But after he had thought the matter over and seen the probability, he swung over to a sort of lame admission that a few more of my statements might perhaps be true.
"I will take your letter and guarantee its delivery in British East, provided I may read it and do not disapprove of its contents." he volunteered.
"That's not unreasonable," I said, "but the letter is in code."
"I should have to see it decoded."