rr and crash of
countless foundries are the impelling force behind Germany's
soldier millions, whether they are holding far-thrown lines in
Russia, or smashing through the Near East, or desperately
counter-attacking in the West.

In harmony with the scene the winter sun sank like a molten metal
ball behind the smoke-stack forest, to set blood-red an hour later
beyond the zigzag lines in France.

Maximilian Harden had just been widely reported as having said that
Germany's great military conquests were in no way due to planning
in higher circles, but are the work of the rank and file---of the
Schultzs and the Schmidts. I liked to think of this as the train
sped on at the close of the short winter afternoon, for my first
business was to call upon a middle-class family on behalf of a
German-American in New York, who wished me to take 100 pounds to
his relatives in a small Rhenish town.

Thus my first evening in Germany found me in a dark little town on
the Rhine groping my way through crooked streets to a home, the
threshold of which I no sooner crossed than I was made to feel that
the arm of the police is long and that it stretches out into the
remotest villages and hamlets.

The following incident, which was exactly typical of what would
happen in nineteen German households out of twenty, may reveal one
small aspect of German character to British and American people,
who are as a rule completely unable to understand German psychology.

Although I had come far out of my way to bring what was for them a
considerable sum of money, as well as some portraits of their
long-absent relatives in the United States and interesting family
news, my reception was as cold as the snow-blown air outside. I
was not allowed to finish explaining my business when I was at
first petulantly and then violently and angrily interrupted with:--

"Have you been to the police?"

"No," I said. "I did not think it was necessary to go to the
police, as I am merely passing through here, and am not going to
stay."

The lady of the house replied coldly, "Go to the police," and shut
the door in my face.

I mastered my temper by reminding myself that whereas such
treatment at home would have been sufficiently insulting to break
off further relations, it was not intended as such in Germany.

It was a long walk for a tired man to the _Polizeiamt_. When I got
there I was fortunate in encountering a lank, easy-going old fellow
who had been co