them. Reports of atrocities troubled him as much as they did me; but the
spine of his contention was that the German army was unbeatable. He got
out his faded discharge ticket from the Würtemberger Landsturm to show
the perfect system of the Imperial military organization. In his desk at
the back of the shop he kept a war map cut from a Sunday supplement and
over this we would argue, Schulz breathing hard and holding his beard
aside in one hand as he bent over the paper. When other customers came
in, he would put the map away with a twinkle, and the topic was dropped.
But often the glass top of the perfume counter was requisitioned as a
large-scale battleground, and the pink bottle of rose water set to
represent Von Hindenburg while the green phial of smelling salts was
Joffre or Brussilov. We fought out the battle of the Marne pretty
completely on the perfume counter. "_Warte doch_!" he would cry. "Just
wait! You will see! All the world is against her, but Germany will win!"

Poor Minna was always afraid her husband and I would quarrel. She knew
well how opposite our sympathies were; she could not understand that our
arguments were wholly lacking in personal animus. When I told him of the
Allies' growing superiority in aircraft Rhubarb would retort by showing
me clippings about the German trench fortifications, the "pill boxes"
made of solid cement. I would speak of the deadly curtain fire of the
British; he would counter with mysterious allusions to Krupp. And his
conclusions were always the same. "Just wait! Germany will win!" And he
would stroke his beard placidly. "But, Fritz!" Minna used to cry in a
panic, "The gentleman might think differently!" Rhubarb and I would grin
at each other, I would buy a tin of tobacco, and we would say good
night.

How dear is the plain, unvarnished human being when one sees him in a
true light! Schulz's honest, kindly face seemed to me to typify all