The Guns of Europe | Page 4

"I wonder if any new people have come," said John, as they walked
down the steps from the terrace. "Don't think I'm weak on culture, Mr.
Anson, but it's always interesting to me to go back to the hotel, see
what fresh types have appeared, and guess from what countries they
have come."
"The refuge of a lazy mind which is unwilling to cope with its
opportunities for learning and progress. John, I feel sometimes that you
are almost hopeless. You have a frivolous strain that you ought to get
rid of as soon as you can."
"Well, sir, I had to laugh at those fat Venuses of Rubens and Jordaens.
They may be art, but I never thought that Venus weighed three hundred
pounds. I know those two painters had to advertise all through the Low
Countries, before they could get models fat enough."
"Stop, John! Is nothing sacred to you?"
"A lady can be too fat to be sacred."
Mr. Anson shook his head. He always stood impressed, and perhaps a
little awed before centuries of culture, and he failed to understand how
any one could challenge the accepted past. John's Philistine spirit,
which he deemed all the more irregular in one so young pained him at
times. Yet it was more as sumed than real with young 1 Scott.
They reached their hotel and passed into the diningroom, where both
did full justice to the good German food. John did not fail to make his
usual inspection of guests, but he started a little, when he saw the
Prussian officer of the gallery, alone at a table by a window
overlooking the Elbe. It was one of the pleasantest views in Europe, but

John knew very well that the man was thinking little of it. His jaw had
not lost is pugnacious thrust, and he snapped his or ders to the waiter as
if he were rebuking a recruit.
Nobody had told John that he was a Prussian, but the young American
knew it nevertheless, and he knew him to be a product, out of the very
heart of that iron military system, before which the whole world stood
afraid, buttressed as it was by tremendous victories over France, and a
state of readiness known to be without an equal.
Herr Simmering, fat, bland and bald, was bending over them, asking
them solicitously if all was right. John always liked this bit of personal
attention from the European hotel proprietors. It established a friendly
feeling. It showed that one was not lost among the swarm of guests,
and here in Germany it invariably made his heart warm to the civilians.
"Can you tell us, Herr Simmering," he asked, "who is the officer alone
in the alcove by the window?"
Herr Gustav Adolph Simmering, the soul of blandness and courtesy,
stiffened in an instant. With the asking of that simple question he
seemed to breathe a new and surcharged air. He lost his expansiveness
in the presence of the German army or any representa tive of it.
Lowering his voice he replied :
"A captain attached in some capacity to the General Staff in Berlin.
Rudolf von Boehlen is his name. It is said that he has high connections,
a distant cousin of the von Moltkes, in much favor, too, with the Em
peror."
"Do Prussian officers have to come here and tell the Saxons what to
do?"
The good Herr Simmering spread out his hands in horror. These simple
Americans surely asked strange and intrusive questions. One could
forgive them only because they were so open, so much like innocent
chil dren, and, unlike those disagreeable English, quarreled so little
about their bills.

"I know no more," he replied. "Here in Germany we never ask why an
officer comes and goes. We trust implicitly in the Emperor and his
advisers who have guarded us so well, and we do not wish to learn the
higher secrets of state. We know that such knowl edge is not for us."
Dignified and slow, as became an important land lord, he nevertheless
went away with enough haste to indicate clearly to John that he wished
to avoid any more questions about the Prussian officer. John was
annoyed. He felt a touch of shame for Herr Sim mering.
"I wish the Germans wouldn't stand in such tre mendous awe of their
own army," he said. "They seem to regard it as some mysterious and
omnipotent force which is always right."
"Don't forget their education and training, John. The great German
empire has risen upon the victories of 1870, and if ever war between
them should come again Germany could smash France as easily as she
did then."
"I could never become reconciled to the spectacle of an empire treading
a republic into the