"I thank you."
The General touched his cap with a slight nod of his head; Reinhold lifted his with a quick movement, returning the nod with a stiff bow.
"Well?" queried Else, as her father came up to her again.
"The man must have been a soldier," replied the General.
"Why so?" asked the President.
"Because I could wish that I might always have such clear, accurate reports from my officers. The situation, then, is this——"
He repeated what he had just heard from Reinhold, and closed by saying that he would recommend to the Captain that the passengers who wished to do so should be disembarked at once. "I, for my part, do not think of submitting to this inconvenience, which it would seem, moreover, is unnecessary; except that Else——"
"I, Papa!" exclaimed Else; "I don't think of it for a moment!"
The President was greatly embarrassed. He had, to be sure, only this morning renewed a very slight former personal acquaintance with General von Werben, after the departure from Stettin; but now that he had chatted with him the entire day and played the knight to the young lady on countless occasions, he could not help explaining, with a twitch of the lips which was intended to be a smile, that he wished now to share with his companions the discomforts of the journey as he had, up to this time, the comforts; the Prussian ministry would be able to console itself, if worse comes to worst, for the loss of a President who, as the father of six young hopefuls, has, besides, a succession of his own, and accordingly neither has nor makes claims to the sympathy of his own generation.