ust now. You would be a danger to
yourself and to all of us!" he said.

My life in that foul den was a burden to me. The living conditions were
unspeakable. Otto, a pale and ill-tempered consumptive, compelled, like
me, to rise in the darkness of the dawn, never washed, and his
companionship in the stuffy hole where we slept was offensive beyond
belief. He openly jeered at my early morning journeys out to a narrow,
stinking court, where I exulted in the ice-cold water from the pump. And
the food! It was only when I saw the mean victuals--the coarse and often
tainted horseflesh, the unappetizing war-bread, the coffee substitute,
and the rest--that I realized how Germany was suffering, though only
through her poor as yet, from the British blockade. That thought used to
help to overcome the nausea with which I sat down to eat.

Domestic life at Haase's was a hell upon earth. Haase himself was a
drunken bully, who made advances to every woman he met, and whose
complicated intrigues with the feminine portion of his clientele led to
frequent scenes with the fair-haired Hebe who presided at the bar and
over his household. It was she and Otto who fared daily forth to take
their places in the long queues that waited for hours with food cards
outside the provision shops.

These trips seemed to tell upon her temper, which would flash out
wrathfully at meal-times, when Haase began his inevitable grumbling
about the food. As Otto took a malicious delight in these family scenes,
I was frequently called upon to assume the role of peace-maker. More
than once I intervened to save Madame from the violence she had called
down upon herself by the sharpness of her tongue. She was a poor, faded
creature, and the tragedy of it all was that she was in love with this
degraded bully. She was grateful to me for my good offices, I think,
for, though she hardly ever addressed me, her manner was always
friendly.

These days of dreary squalor would have been unbearable if it had not
been for my elucidation of the word Boonekamp, which was said to hold
the clue to my brother's address. On the wall in the cubby-hole where I
slept was a tattered advertisement card of this _aperitif_--for such is
the preparation--proclaiming it to be "Germany's Best Cordial." As I
undressed at night, I often used to stare at this placard, wondering
what connection Boonekamp could possibly have with my brother. I
determined to take the first opportunity of examining t