Thus chatting, we turned the corner, and came in sight of our goal, the Excelsior Theatre. And there was the mob!
II
At first, when I saw the mass of people, I thought it was the usual picture crowd. I said, with a smile, “Can it be that the American people are not so dead to art after all?” But then I observed that the crowd seemed to be swaying this way and that; also there seemed to be a great many men in army uniforms. “Hello!” I exclaimed. “A row?”
There was a clamor of shouting; the army men seemed to be pulling and pushing the civilians. When we got nearer, I asked of a bystander, “What's up?” The answer was: “They don't want 'em to go in to see the picture.”
“Why not?”
“It's German. Hun propaganda!”
Now you must understand, I had helped to win a war, and no man gets over such an experience at once. I had a flash of suspicion, and glanced at my companion, the cultured literary critic from Berlin. Could it possibly be that this smooth-spoken gentleman was playing a trick upon me—trying, possibly, to get something into my crude American mind without my realizing what was happening? But I remembered his detailed account of the production, the very essence of “art for art's sake.” I decided that the war was three years over, and I was competent to do my own thinking.
Dr. Henner spoke first. “I think,” he said, “it might be wiser if I did not try to go in there.”
“Absurd!” I cried. “I'm not going to be dictated to by a bunch of imbeciles!”
“No,” said the other, “you are an American, and don't have to be. But I am a German, and I must learn.”