urn in the outer office as the
vice-consul ushered the police inspector into the consul's private
office. He was in uniform, of course, and it took him a moment to
recover from his habitual stiff, military salute,--a little stiffer than
that of the actual soldier.

It was a matter of importance! A stranger had that morning been arrested
in the town and identified as a military deserter. He claimed to be an
American citizen; he was now in the outer office, waiting the consul's
interrogation.

The consul knew, however, that the ominous accusation had only a mild
significance here. The term "military deserter" included any one who
had in youth emigrated to a foreign country without first fulfilling his
military duty to his fatherland. His first experiences of these cases
had been tedious and difficult,--involving a reference to his Minister
at Berlin, a correspondence with the American State Department, a
condition of unpleasant tension, and finally the prolonged detention of
some innocent German--naturalized--American citizen, who had forgotten
to bring his papers with him in revisiting his own native country. It so
chanced, however, that the consul enjoyed the friendship and confidence
of the General Adlerkreutz, who commanded the 20th Division, and it
further chanced that the same Adlerkreutz was as gallant a soldier as
ever cried Vorwarts! at the head of his men, as profound a military
strategist and organizer as ever carried his own and his enemy's
plans in his iron head and spiked helmet, and yet with as simple and
unaffected a soul breathing under his gray mustache as ever issued from
the lips of a child. So this grim but gentle veteran had arranged
with the consul that in cases where the presumption of nationality
was strong, although the evidence was not present, he would take the
consul's parole for the appearance of the "deserter" or his papers,
without the aid of prolonged diplomacy. In this way the consul had saved
to Milwaukee a worthy but imprudent brewer, and to New York an excellent
sausage butcher and possible alderman; but had returned to martial duty
one or two tramps or journeymen who had never seen America except from
the decks of the ships in which they were "stowaways," and on which they
were returned,--and thus the temper and peace of two great nations were
preserved.

"He says," said the inspector severely, "that he is an American citizen,
but has lost his naturalization papers. Yet he has made