nd was
gone some time. Presently the General came out himself, seething in his
best manner.

"_A qui tout ce tas de depeches?_" roars he.

"_A moi_," says I.

He then announced in a voice of thunder that they were all wrong and
that he was having them rewritten. Before I could summon enough breath
to shout him down and protest, he had gone into another room and slammed
the door. I rushed back to my trusty aide-de-camp and told him to get me
those telegrams right away; he came back with word that they would be
sent after correction. I said that under no circumstances could they
send out a word over the signature of the American Minister without his
having written it himself. He came back and said that he could not get
the cables. I started to walk into the office myself to get them, only
to bump into the General coming out with the messages in his hand. He
threw them down on a table and began telling a young officer what
corrections to make on the telegraph form itself. I protested vigorously
against any such proceeding, telling him that we should be glad to have
his views as to any errors in our message, but that he could not touch a
letter in any official message. At this stage of the game he was
summoned to the office of the Burgomaster and rushed off with a string
of oaths that would have made an Arizona cow-puncher take off his hat.
The young officer started calmly interlining the message, so I reached
over and took it away from him, with the statement that I would report
to my chief what had happened. He was all aflutter, and asked that I
remain, as the General would not be long. I could not see any use in
waiting longer, however, and made as dignified a retreat as possible
under the circumstances. There were a number of cables in the handful I
had carried around that were being sent in the interest of the German
Government and of German subjects, and I took good care to tell the
young man that while we were glad to do anything reasonable for them or
for their people, we had stood for a good deal more than they had a
right to expect, and that these cables would stay on my desk until such
time as they got ready to make a proper arrangement for our
communications. Now we shall settle down and see what happens next.

[Illustration: German officers and soldiers were always ready to oblige
by posing for the camera]

[Illustration: "Mit Gott fuer Kaiser und Reich." This trio had a mania
for being photographed]

[