une he had inherited.

"You'll be quite safe up here for the present," Monica went on. "You'll
sleep in the little room off Gerry's and I'll have your meals served
there too. After I have found out from the General how things stand,
we'll decide what's to be done next."

"I'll be very wary with Master Gerry," I said. "But, Monica, though he
has only seen me once, he knows Francis pretty well and we are rather
alike. Do you think he'll recognize me?"

"Why, Desmond, it's years since he saw you. And you're not much like
Francis with your moustache off. If you're careful, it'll be all right!
It isn't for long, either. Now we'll go in. Come along."

As we entered, a petulant voice cried:

"Is that you, Monica? Say, am I to be left alone all the morning?"

"Gerry dear," answered Monica very sweetly, "I've been engaging someone
to look after you a bit. Come here, Meyer! This is Frederick Meyer,
Gerry!"

I should never have recognized the handsome, rather indolent youth I had
met in London in the pale man with features drawn with pain who gazed
frowningly at me from the bed.

"Who is he? Where did you get him from? Does he know German?"

He shot a string of questions at Monica, who answered them in her sweet,
patient way.

He was apparently satisfied, for, when Monica presently got up to leave
us, he threw me an armful of German papers and bade me read to him.

I had not sat with him for ten minutes before I realized what an
impossible creature the man was. Nothing I could do was right. Now he
didn't want to hear the war news, then it was the report of the
Reichstag debate that bored him, now I didn't read loud enough, then my
voice jarred on him. Finally, he snatched the paper out of my hand.

"I can't understand half you say," he cried in accents shrill with
irritability; "you mouth and mumble like an Englishman. You say you are
an American?"

"Yes, sir," I answered meekly, "but I resided for many years in
England."

"Well, it's a good thing you're not there now. Those English are just
plumb crazy. They'll never whip Germany, not if they try for a century.
Why, look what this country has done in this war? Nothing can stand
against her! It's organization, that's what it is! The Germans lead the
world. Take their doctors! I have been to every specialist in America
about my back and paid them thousands of dollars. And what good did they
do me? Not a thing. I come to Germany, they charge me a quarter of the
fee