prosy fancy is blowing bubbles. “But look,” he announces, “I simply can’t believe that an emperor has to go to the latrine the same as I have.”
“You can bet your boots on it.”
“Four and a half-wit make seven,” says Kat. “You’ve got a maggot in your brain, Tjaden, just you run along to the latrine quick, and get your head clear, so that you don’t talk like a two-year-old.”
Tjaden disappears.
“But what I would like to know,” says Albert, “is whether there would not have been a war if the Kaiser had said No.”
“I’m sure of this much,” I interject, “he was against it from the first.”
“Well, if not him alone, then perhaps if twenty or thirty people in the world had said No.”
“That’s probable,” I agree, “but they damned well said Yes.”
“It’s queer, when one thinks about it,” goes on Kropp, “we are here to protect our fatherland. And the French are over there to protect their fatherland. Now, who’s in the right?”
“Perhaps both,” say I, without believing it.
“Yes, well now,” pursues Albert, and I see that he means to drive me into a corner, “but our pro-
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