Stories in Light and Shadow | Page 4

And
although the officers always wore their side-arms, and at the most
peaceful of social dinners only relinquished their swords in the hall,
apparently that they might be ready to buckle them on again and rush
out to do battle for the Fatherland between the courses, the other guests
only looked upon these weapons in the light of sticks and umbrellas,
and possessed their souls in peace. And when, added to this singular

incongruity, many of these warriors were spectacled, studious men, and,
despite their lethal weapons, wore a slightly professional air, and
were--to a man--deeply sentimental and singularly simple, their attitude
in this eternal Kriegspiel seemed to the consul more puzzling than ever.
As he entered his consulate he was confronted with another aspect of
Schlachtstadt quite as wonderful, yet already familiar to him. For, in
spite of these "alarums without," which, however, never seem to
penetrate beyond the town itself, Schlachtstadt and its suburbs were
known all over the world for the manufactures of certain beautiful
textile fabrics, and many of the rank and file of those warriors had built
up the fame and prosperity of the district over their peaceful looms in
wayside cottages. There were great depots and counting-houses, larger
than even the cavalry barracks, where no other uniform but that of the
postman was known. Hence it was that the consul's chief duty was to
uphold the flag of his own country by the examination and certification
of divers invoices sent to his office by the manufacturers. But, oddly
enough, these business messengers were chiefly women,--not clerks,
but ordinary household servants, and, on busy days, the consulate
might have been mistaken for a female registry office, so filled and
possessed it was by waiting Madchen. Here it was that Gretchen,
Lieschen, and Clarchen, in the cleanest of blue gowns, and stoutly but
smartly shod, brought their invoices in a piece of clean paper, or folded
in a blue handkerchief, and laid them, with fingers more or less worn
and stubby from hard service, before the consul for his signature. Once,
in the case of a very young Madchen, that signature was blotted by the
sweep of a flaxen braid upon it as the child turned to go; but generally
there was a grave, serious business instinct and sense of responsibility
in these girls of ordinary peasant origin which, equally with their sisters
of France, were unknown to the English or American woman of any
class.
That morning, however, there was a slight stir among those who, with
their knitting, were waiting their turn in the outer office as the
vice-consul ushered the police inspector into the consul's private office.
He was in uniform, of course, and it took him a moment to recover
from his habitual stiff, military salute,--a little stiffer than that of the

actual soldier.
It was a matter of importance! A stranger had that morning been
arrested in the town and identified as a military deserter. He claimed to
be an American citizen; he was now in the outer office, waiting the
consul's interrogation.
The consul knew, however, that the ominous accusation had only a
mild significance here. The term "military deserter" included any one
who had in youth emigrated to a foreign country without first fulfilling
his military duty to his fatherland. His first experiences of these cases
had been tedious and difficult,-- involving a reference to his Minister at
Berlin, a correspondence with the American State Department, a
condition of unpleasant tension, and finally the prolonged detention of
some innocent German--naturalized--American citizen, who had
forgotten to bring his papers with him in revisiting his own native
country. It so chanced, however, that the consul enjoyed the friendship
and confidence of the General Adlerkreutz, who commanded the 20th
Division, and it further chanced that the same Adlerkreutz was as
gallant a soldier as ever cried Vorwarts! at the head of his men, as
profound a military strategist and organizer as ever carried his own and
his enemy's plans in his iron head and spiked helmet, and yet with as
simple and unaffected a soul breathing under his gray mustache as ever
issued from the lips of a child. So this grim but gentle veteran had
arranged with the consul that in cases where the presumption of
nationality was strong, although the evidence was not present, he would
take the consul's parole for the appearance of the "deserter" or his
papers, without the aid of prolonged diplomacy. In this way the consul
had saved to Milwaukee a worthy but imprudent brewer, and to New
York an excellent sausage butcher and possible alderman; but had
returned to martial duty one or two tramps or journeymen who had
never seen America except from the decks of the ships in which they
were "stowaways," and on which