ce and that therefore I could not pass myself off as a German.

"Bah!" I said to give myself courage, "this is a free country, a neutral
country. They may be offensive, they may overcharge you, in a Hun hotel,
but they can't eat you. Besides, any bed in a night like this!" and I
pushed open the door.

Within, the hotel proved to be rather better than its uninviting
exterior promised. There was a small vestibule with a little glass cage
of an office on one side and beyond it an old-fashioned flight of
stairs, with a glass knob on the post at the foot, winding to the upper
stories.

At the sound of my footsteps on the mosaic flooring, a waiter emerged
from a little cubby-hole under the stairs. He had a blue apron girt
about his waist, but otherwise he wore the short coat and the dicky and
white tie of the Continental hotel waiter. His hands were grimy with
black marks and so was his apron. He had apparently been cleaning
boots.

He was a big, fat, blonde man with narrow, cruel little eyes. His hair
was cut so short that his head appeared to be shaven. He advanced
quickly towards me and asked me in German in a truculent voice what I
wanted.

I replied in the same language, I wanted a room.

He shot a glance at me through his little slits of eyes on hearing my
good Bonn accent, but his manner did not change.

"The hotel is full. The gentleman cannot have a bed here. The
proprietress is out at present. I regret...." He spat this all out in
the offhand insolent manner of the Prussian official.

"It was Franz, of the Bopparder Hof, who recommended me to come here," I
said. I was not going out again into the rain for a whole army of
Prussian waiters.

"He told me that Frau Schratt would make me very comfortable," I added.

The waiter's manner changed at once.

"So, so," he said--quite genially this time--"it was Franz who sent the
gentleman to us. He is a good friend of the house, is Franz. Ja, Frau
Schratt is unfortunately out just now, but as soon as the lady returns I
will inform her you are here. In the meantime, I will give the gentleman
a room."

He handed me a candlestick and a key.

"So," he grunted, "No. 31, the third floor."

A clock rang out the hour somewhere in the distance.

"Ten o'clock already," he said. "The gentleman's papers can wait till
to-morrow, it is so late. Or perhaps the gentleman will give them to the
proprietress. She must come any moment."

As I mounted the winding staircase I