leave. Then they took her," and he bowed his head in his hands, "took
her away----"

"Where, where?" I almost shouted at him.

"To Berlin, a week ago," was all he said.

[Illustration: "In Berlin."]

CHAPTER XX.

Footing the Bill.

It is difficult at this distant date to give in detail the story of the
riot that began in Berlin and thundered round the earth toward the end
of 1915.

While the Great War was under way the belligerents were like gamblers
crowded round a table, as they threw down their millions in men and
money to beat the whirling finger of Fate.

Great Britain and her Allies had 12,600,000 men and had spent
L1,180,000,000. Germany, Austria and Turkey had 8,800,000 men and had
spent L1,282,000,000. When the awful game was over there were over
18,000,000 people to go back to civil life, many of whom were crippled.
Withal the belligerents had lost over L9,000,000,000 in direct
expenditure, loss of production and capitalised value of the human
sacrifice.

These 18,000,000 men were flung back into civil life at a time when
almost all productive industry was crippled or paralysed. The world
could not immediately reorganise her industries and taxation promised to
be colossal.

When men came back to their homes, or what was left of them, took off
their uniforms and put their guns behind the doors, they sat down and
pondered. They began to count up the cost and wondered how to foot the
bill.

One can, therefore, easily understand they did not form a high opinion
of the wisdom of those who had governed them and exacted unquestioning
obedience from them.

Was it any wonder then that they should consider they might as well take
a hand in governing? They could not make a worse mess of things than
those who claimed to have had a divine commission for the job. When the
masses, who had furnished the bulk of the soldiers, began to think, the
position became dangerous, especially as real thinking had stopped
fifteen months before and there was a call for overtime in thinking to
make up.

The man with the gun would remember that before Britain entered the war
there was a heavy tax per head. He would find out that though Britain
had been attempting to cheer herself up during the war with a motto of
"Business as Usual," her exports had diminished by L50,000,000, and the
actual cost had been L1,250,000,000!

Then he would think very hard.

If he were French he would remember that before the war op