_The Telephone_. Rr-rr.

_The Marshal_. All right, all right, I'm coming. Yes, I'm Marshal VON
HINDENBURG. Who are you? What? I can't hear a single word. You really
must speak up. Louder--louder still, you fool. What? Oh, I really
beg your Majesty's pardon. I assure you it was impossible to hear
distinctly, but it's all right now. I thank your Majesty, I am in my
usual good health. Yes. No, not at all. Yes, I have good hope that we
shall now maintain ourselves for at least two days. Yes, if we are
forced to retire we must say it is according to plan. No, I don't like
it either, but what is to be done? Their guns are more numerous and
heavier than ours, and weight of metal must tell. Will I hold the
line? Yes, certainly, till your Majesty returns and graciously resumes
the conversation. Oh, you didn't mean that line? You meant the
Siegfried line, or the Wotan line, or the Hindenburg line? Yes, I see,
it was a _Witz_, a play of words. Yes, I am sorry I could not at once
see what your Majesty was driving at, but now I see it is good. I must
practise my joking. Ha-ha-ha! Are you there? No, he's gone (_rings
off_). (_To himself_) He is a queer Emperor who is able to make jokes
while his soldiers are dying by thousands and thousands. It can't last
like this--and as for the Hindenburg line, I'm perfectly tired to
death of the words; and the thing itself doesn't exist.

_The Telephone_. Rr-rr-rr-rr.

_The Marshal_. What, again? This is too much--who are you? Who? WHO?
General VON KLUCK? Impossible. General VON KLUCK's dead. What--not
dead? Anyhow, nobody's heard of him for months. If you're really
General VON KLUCK I'm afraid we must consider you to be dead. The