the
first military Postzug, which left at 7 A.M. If he was not gone by that
time there were terrible threats of what would happen to him.

It so happened that the day was the Crown Princess's birthday. Soldiers,
grenadiers, and servants of the Kaiser's household celebrated the fact.
Brown evaded his intoxicated sentinels and deliberately missed the
train. The following morning Major Nikolai discovered him behind the
guardhouse, himself feigning intoxication. Major Nikolai was about to
throw Brown into jail "for the duration of the war" when the young man
answered:--

"But, Major, I overslept. What loyal German could possibly remain sober
on the Crown Princess's birthday?"

"Gott im Himmel!" exclaimed the major, bursting into a laugh; "vatever
can be done mit such a man?"

To-day Brown has free run of the Foreign Office and the War Office in
Berlin, and is sending to his paper, in my humble opinion, the best
information obtainable in this country on the way in which the German
civil and military mind views the "crisis" with the U. S. A.

Chapter VIII

The Sorrow Of The People

I was conscious of a distinct break between the crisp, official
atmosphere of Berlin--where the war hurts least and the mechanical
appearance of success is strong--and the sentiment of the rank and file
of people whose suffering, as the war continued, became a more and more
important factor.

On the night of my second arrival in the capital I sat in the rear of a
motion-picture theater, just off the Friedrichstrasse. It was a long,
dark hallway, such as one may see in any of the cheaper "movies" on
Washington Street or Broadway, where the audience sits in silence broken
by the whirr of the cinematograph and in darkness pierced by the
flickering light upon the screen. The woman in the seat beside mine was
the typical Hausfrau of the middle class. She was, of course, dressed
in mourning: the heavy veil, which was thrown back, revealed the
expression so common to the German widow of to-day --that set, defiant
look which begs no pity, and seems to say: "We've lost them once; we 'd
endure the same torture again if we had to."

It was a sad enough story that the reel clicked off, and about as
melodramatic as "movies" usually are. But the woman kept herself well
in hand, since the public display of grief is forbidden and they who
sorrow must sorrow alone.

A Bavarian boy, as I recall it,--the youngest son,--runs away from ho