“Any news from the front, young man?” she exclaimed.
“Not much,” he replied. “Big battle in progress.”
“Well, thank heaven,” she said, “that it’s not in Belgium, where my poor Johnnie is gone.”
HOW I ESCAPED FROM BERLIN
Supposed to Be Written by Mrs. Malaprop
’Tis very easy to ask me for an account of my escape from Berlin, but when one has been hustled and fluted and prosecuted as I have, it is a wonder that one’s brain is not totally disinterred. However, in spite of my adventitious experiments, I am still, thank heaven! compote mentis, and can give a strictly voracious prescription of my sufferings. Like Othello, I will “nothing exterminate, nor set up aught in malice.”
You may require what I was doing in the great Prussian necropolis. The fact is that after the fatigues of the season I found myself somewhat interposed. I am the last person to give way to a fit of the vapors, but my enemy, the gout, had made such invidious advances and become so chromatic that I was advised to go and reciprocate under the care of a prominent Berlin physician. Despite the diversion which I naturally feel for all Germans, I must admit that his treatment and regiment proved beneficent—though his fees were exuberant—and I was rapidly recovering when the declaration of war burst upon us like a cataplasm.
Berlin was at once in a state of convolution. The streets were crowded with people in a very succulent humor, waving flags, singing typical songs, and shouting remarks which deluded recognition, as my knowledge of the language is merely superfluous. Any attempt at leaving the house was not only fertile but periculous, as Englishmen were subjugated to various forms of contumacy, either because the police were useless or with their secret contrivance.
I protest I never saw such a panharmonium! Foreign residents had their windows stoned, and abstained many cuts and confusions from the missals. The proprietor of our boarding-house was not actually indolent, but treated me in a very caviare manner, advising me to speak no English. Even neuters, he told me, were being distrained to stimulate a factious enthusiasm for the Kaiser.
Next day an official arrived. He asked me if I was English. “Sir,” I replied, “I am no camellia, changing my colors to suit my surroundings.” I think he hardly depreciated my semaphore; he merely told me to pack my trunks in readiness to leave Berlin at a certain hour next day. After another sleepless night passed in anxious participations, four of us were convoyed to the station in a closed vehicle and left for hours on a platform crowded to supplication with fugitives. Some of the women wept quietly, while others gave way to historical outbursts. They gave us nothing but water, and I was induced to eating some digestible chocolate caravans produced by my maid.