at is as it should be! No women have souls!"

------------
*You want to be popular, don't you!
------------

"How about your own mother?" Fred suggested.

"She was a good Prussian! She was a super-woman! Not to be mentioned
in the same breath with women of any other race! Yet even she--the
good Prussian mother--could not hold a candle to a man! Her business
was to raise sons for Prussia, and she did it! I have eight brothers,
all in the army, and only one sister; she has four sons already!"

"Strange that your nation should breed like that!" said Fred.

"Not strange at all!" answered Schubert. "We are needed to conquer the
world! Think, for instance, when we have conquered the Congo Free
State, and taken away East and South Africa from England--to say
nothing of Egypt and India!--how many Prussian sergeant-majors we shall
want! Donnerwetter! Do you think we Germans will long be satisfied
with this miserable section of East Africa that was all the English
left to us on this coast? We use this for a foothold, that is all! We
use this to gain time and get ready! You think perhaps I do not know,
eh? I am only feldwebel--non-commissioned officer, you call it. Well
and good. I tell you our officers talk all the time of nothing else!
And they don't care who hears them!"

The Jew gave Fred his bill, scrawled on a piece of wrapping paper.
Schubert snatched it away and crumpled it into a ball.

"Kreutzblitzen! You are my guests to-night! I invited you!"

"Thanks" Fred answered, "but we don't care to be your guests. Here,"
he said, turning to the Jew, "take your money!"

Schubert said nothing, but eyed the Jew with a perfectly blank face, as
if he watched to see whether the man would damn himself or not.

"Take your money!" repeated Fred. But the Jew turned his back and
busied himself with bottles at the side-table.

"He knows better!" Schubert laughed. "He understands by this time our
German hospitality!"

"All right," answered Fred. "We'll go out without paying!"

"Not at all," retorted Schubert. "The mess shall pay bill in full!
You stay here until I have said what I have to say to you! The rest of
your party may go, but you stay! You can explain to the others
afterward."

He leaned forward, reached a bottle of beer off the table, knocked off
the neck, and emptied the contents down his throat at a draught.
Behind his back we exchanged glances.

"I'll listen," said Fred.

"You alone?"