Part 17 (1/2)
”The United States? Bah! One more country to fight; what difference would it make to Germany, especially one that could make so little showing? You have no army. Your navy could do no more than England is already doing. We are at present cut off from your supplies as much as if we were at war with you. Finally, the German-Americans would put the brakes on you, now that another Presidential election is approaching.
”No, Mr. Edestone,” he shook his head triumphantly; ”you are making a bad mistake, if you are relying on the protection of the United States, now that you have stuck your head into the tiger's mouth.”
”Do I understand, Count von Hemelstein, that Germany proposes to hold me a prisoner? Are you telling me that she would dare do such a thing?”
”Ah, do not put it so crudely.” The Count raised his hand a trifle mockingly. ”Let us say, rather, that we expect you to become so convinced of the righteousness of our cause that you will gladly turn over your instrument and render us any other aid you can toward the crus.h.i.+ng of our enemies.”
The smile faded from his lips, and for a moment he, ”showed his teeth.”
”Take my advice, my friend,” he said sharply. ”Don't try to frighten the Wilhelmstra.s.se with your moving pictures and your covert threats of intervention by the United States as you did at Buckingham Palace.
We are made of sterner stuff here. We know the nature of your invention, and just what you can accomplish with it; and our gifted men of science are now hard at work in the effort to duplicate your achievement.
”My brother brought back word a year ago,” he disclosed, ”that you were building a super-dreadnought 907 feet long, 90 feet beam, 35 feet draught, 40,000 tons displacement. We also know that you are now working full blast night and day at your 'Little Place in the Country.' We know about the tricks you played with that flunkey in your audience with the King. A hint to us Germans is all that is needed.
”We know further,” he went on in a sterner voice, ”the sentiments of love and devotion toward England that you expressed to the English King, and we know the tenor of the answer that was returned to your proposition.
”But do you imagine that you can come here, sir, and dictate terms to our Emperor, or arrange a peace for us, which would mean anything less than the absolute humbling of England? Do you think we would run the slightest risk of letting this invention of yours fall into England's hands?
”Your question was expressed very undiplomatically, Mr. Edestone, for one who is arrogating to himself the prerogatives of an envoy and amba.s.sador. Nations in speaking to one another use language that is lighter than fairy's thought, and sweeter than a baby's dream, but more deadly than a pestilence. But I will answer you on this occasion just as bluntly and baldly.
”We do propose to hold you virtually a prisoner on German soil until such time as our men of science have completed their labours. If they succeed in solving the secret of your discovery, we shall be ready to try conclusions with the United States, and shall deal with you personally as may seem most advisable, dragging you by force from the very Emba.s.sy itself, if you attempt to take refuge there. If, on the other hand, our men of science fail, your position will be in no way preferable. We will simply compel you to disclose your secret to us, and, as I told you once before, we stop at nothing to gain our ends.
Your best plan, therefore, and I believe I am your sincere friend when I tell you this, is to sell to my Government at once.”
A slightly amused smile flitted over Edestone's lips from time to time as he listened; but when he spoke it was quite seriously.
”I have no doubt,” he said, ”that everything you tell me is absolutely true. Germany is undoubtedly thorough, whether her thoroughness take the form of the destruction of Louvain, or of sewing two b.u.t.tons where only one is needed on the trousers of her soldiers. But I pity her for not finding a larger way to gain her ends in the first place, and for her conceit in thinking that a lot of little thoughts and extra b.u.t.tons when added together make a great nation. Germany may know exactly how many gold and how many amalgam fillings there are in the teeth of the German army, but she does not know that thousands of men leave Germany and come to the United States simply because they do not want their teeth counted. Germany may know what I have done and am doing at my place on the Hudson, but she does not know that she has so incensed me by her methods of obtaining this information that it were better for her if she had never known, or you so boastful as to have told me of it.
”Yes,” and he spoke almost with the fervour of an inspired prophet; ”Germany may know her alphabet of war from end to end, forward and backward, but she does not know that she and it are doomed to destruction, because she thinks that she can drive the intelligent modern world with a spear, as her forefathers did the wild beasts of the Black Forest.”
Von Hemelstein started and laid his hand indignantly to the hilt of his sword. His instructions to bring Edestone safely to Berlin alone prevented him from punis.h.i.+ng then and there such insult to his country and his Emperor.
”My orders prevent me from killing you!” he said hoa.r.s.ely, as he straightened up and, drawing his heels together with a click, turned and stalked away.
He took a seat at the other side of the car, and as if utterly oblivious that such a creature as Edestone existed, produced and deliberately adjusted the two parts of a very long and handsome cigarette holder, and with much straining of his very tight uniform restored the case to the place provided by law for its concealment on his glittering person. He then took out his cigarette case, and after selecting a cigarette, he gently tapped it on the gold cover, glaring all the time quite through and beyond the unspeakable American. With more absurd contortions the cigarette case was disposed of, and matches produced. Then, stretching out his beautiful patent-leather boots, he finally lighted his cigarette.
He took a deep inhalation, and blew from the very bottom of his lungs a thin cloud of smoke in Edestone's direction, while with much rattling he unfolded a newspaper, and pretended to read it.
Edestone, who was with difficulty keeping a straight face, sat all this time solemnly watching him with the expression of a schoolgirl looking at her matinee idol at about the juncture in the last act when that hero puts on his kingly robes which have been hidden for a hundred years in the moth closet of his twenty-story apartment house on upper Riverside Drive.
When the Count finally peeped cautiously over the top of his paper to see what effect he was producing, he felt almost tempted to applaud and blow him a kiss.
”Count von Hemelstein,” he said lazily, when finally the Prussian had put down his paper, and was sitting glaring in front of him, ”I was just thinking what a stunning book-cover you would make for a cheap novel, or how many thousands of bottles of beer your picture would sell in Hoboken. Hoboken, you know, is the headquarters of the German-American standing army, and your second largest naval base. Or you might serve as----”
He halted in some anxiety, for it seemed as if the Count were about to choke to death.
CHAPTER XIX
THE GERMAN POINT OF VIEW