and carefully cleaned his ears.

A glass dish of stewed apricots was placed upon the table.

"Ah, fruit!" said Fraulein Stiegelauer, "that is so necessary to health.
The doctor told me this morning that the more fruit I could eat the
better."

She very obviously followed the advice.

Said the Traveller: "I suppose you are frightened of an invasion, too, eh?
Oh, that's good. I've been reading all about your English play in a
newspaper. Did you see it?"

"Yes." I sat upright. "I assure you we are not afraid."

"Well, then, you ought to be," said the Herr Rat. "You have got no army at
all--a few little boys with their veins full of nicotine poisoning."

"Don't be afraid," Herr Hoffmann said. "We don't want England. If we did
we would have had her long ago. We really do not want you."

He waved his spoon airily, looking across at me as though I were a little
child whom he would keep or dismiss as he pleased.

"We certainly do not want Germany," I said.

"This morning I took a half bath. Then this afternoon I must take a knee
bath and an arm bath," volunteered the Herr Rat; "then I do my exercises
for an hour, and my work is over. A glass of wine and a couple of rolls