"Untruth. Why did you not pay for three candles left in your room at
Karlsruhe? Here is the unreceipted slip."

"Because I did not use them. I did not want them. I left them on the
mantel."

"And here is a balance due on your laundry bill at Hamburg--twelve
cents--unpaid. How do you explain that?" A torn and dirty washing
schedule was handed down to him to refresh his memory.

"I didn't know I owed any balance," argued Jim to his spokesman.
"Tell him it was not presented to me. Tell him I will be only too
glad to pay anything I owe. I always pay what I owe." The examiner
gingerly took up a crumpled napkin, brown from an overturned
_demi-tasse_.

"August sixteenth, you spilled coffee on your napkin at
lunch--half-past twelve. And you went away from the Hotel
Bellevue--Bavaria--without making it good. What have you to
say to that?" The sorry cloth was held up contemptuously for
Jim's inspection and for the edification of the duly pained
official audience, most of whom, however, doubtless made no
use of such an article in their daily lives.

"I never heard anything about it!" cried Deming. "In my country
such things are thrown in. Nothing said about them. But tell him
I'll pay it--I'll pay anything--everything. How much is it?"

"Twenty-five cents, the bill claims."

"What is the total?" And Jim began digging in his pockets while
holding up his head testily. He had never before been accused of
hotel-beating. But payment did not yet appear to be in order. He
stared at the mass of files and papers before his cross-questioner.
He realized that his whole record in Germany lay there. The Imperial
Service had traced him like bloodhounds. Due to his frequent
irritated displays of proud American independence on his tour, the
bill of small grievances, now accumulated, no doubt assumed
troublesome proportions when exposed in its formidable length. Three
hours had been consumed, accounted for in part by the necessity of
an interpreter. As meal time was at hand Deming was commanded to
appear the next morning at nine to have his testimony taken at
length.

He departed, his buoyant nature rising once more in partial relief.
True to his Yankee instincts he now concluded they were only after
the money he owed.

"They want to scare me to make me pay up," he said to himself. "They
are afraid they won't get it. I'll pay the little two or three
dollars and that will end the matter. These blamed Germans with
their ten cents and