The demand wrought an instant change in him--he drew himself up, perhaps
to five feet five.
"Vat you got against the Germans?" he asked me, almost with menace. It
was the voice of a fanatic intoning "Die Wacht am Rhein"--of a zealot
speaking for the whole embattled _Vaterland_.
The situation was becoming farcical.
"Nothing in the world, I assure you," I replied. "They are a simple,
kindly people. They are musical. They have given the world Schiller,
Goethe, the famous _Kultur_, and a new conception of the possibilities
of war. But I think they should have kept out of Belgium, and I feel the
same way about my room--and don't you try to pull a pistol or I may feel
more strongly still."
"I ain't got no pistol, _nein_," declared my visitor, sulkily. His
resentment had already left him; he had shrunk back to five feet three.
"Well, I have, but I'll worry along without it," I remarked, with
a glance at the nearest bag. As targets, I don't regard my
fellow-creatures with great enthusiasm and, moreover, I could easily
have made two of this mousy champion of a warlike race.
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