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Page 42
A GLASS OF WINE WITH CLUBFOOT
I walked boldly into the room. All sense of fear had vanished in a wave
of anger that swept over me, anger with myself for letting myself be
trapped, anger with my companion for his treachery.
Schmalz stood at my elbow with a smile full of malice on his face.
"There now!" he cried, "you see, you are among friends! Am I not
thoughtful to have prepared this little surprise for you? See, I have
brought you to the one man you have crossed so many hundreds of miles of
ocean to see! Herr Doktor! this is Dr. Semlin. Dr. Semlin: Dr. Grundt."
The other had by now heaved his unwieldy frame from the chair.
"Dr. Semlin?" he said, in a perfectly emotionless voice, _une voix
blanche_, as the French say, "this is an unexpected pleasure. I never
thought we should meet in Berlin. I had believed our rendezvous to have
been fixed for Rotterdam. Still, better late than never!" And he
extended to me a white, fat hand.
"Our friend, the Herr Leutnant," I answered carelessly, "omitted to
inform me that he was acquainted with you, as, indeed, he failed to warn
me that I should have the pleasure of seeing you here to-night."
"We owe that pleasure," Clubfoot replied with a smile that displayed a
glitter of gold in his teeth, "to a purely fortuitous encounter at the
Casino at Goch, as, indeed, it would appear, I am similarly indebted to
chance for the unlooked-for boon of making your personal acquaintance
here this evening."
He bowed to Schmalz as he said this.
"But come," he went on, "if I may make bold to offer you the hospitality
of your own room, sit down and try a glass of this excellent
Brauneberger. Rhine wine must be scarce where you come from. We have
much to tell one another, you and I."
Again he bared his golden teeth in a smile.
"By all means," I said. "But I fear we keep our young friend from his
bed. Doubtless, you have no secrets from him, but you will agree, Herr
Doktor, that our conversation should best be t�te-�-t�te."
"Schmalz, dear friend," Clubfoot exclaimed with a sigh of regret, "much
as I should like ... I am indeed truly sorry that we should be deprived
of your company, but I cannot contest the profound accuracy of our
friend's remark. If you could go to the sitting-room for a few
minutes...."
The young lieutenant flushed angrily.
"If you prefer my room to my company ... by all means," he retorted
gruffly, "but I think, in the circumstances, that I shall go to bed."
And he turned on his heel and walked out of the room, shutting the door
with rather more force than was necessary, I thought.
Clubfoot sighed.
"Ach! youth! youth!" he cried, "the same impetuous youth that is at
this very moment hacking out for Germany a world empire amidst the
nations in arms. A wonderful race, a race of giants, our German youth,
Herr Doktor ... the mainspring of our great German machine--as they find
who resist it. A glass of wine!"
The man's speech and manner boded ill for me, I felt. I would have
infinitely preferred violent language and open threats to the subtle
menace that lay concealed beneath all this suavity.
"You smoke?" queried Clubfoot. "No!"--he held up his hand to stop me as
I was reaching for my cigarette case, "you shall have a cigar--not one
of our poor German Hamburgers, but a fine Havana cigar given me by a
member of the English Privy Council. You stare! Aha! I repeat, by a
member of the English Privy Council, to me, the Boche, the barbarian,
the Hun! No hole and corner work for the old doctor. _Der Stelze_ may be
lame, Clubfoot may be past his work, but when he travels _en mission_,
he travels _en prince_, the man of wealth and substance. There is none
too high to do him honour, to listen to his views on poor, misguided
Germany, the land of thinkers sold into bondage to the militarists! Bah!
the fools!"
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