coffeehouse king. Were he to suffer a single defeat, the world would
instantly forget its enthusiasm. Another general would assume the reign,
another sovereign would fly through the town in a motor car, and the
vast retinue of servants would reverently bow before their new ruler.
The old one would be nothing but a past episode, a scarecrow revealed,
which any sparrow impudently besmirches.

The general's pudgy hand involuntarily clenched itself, and the dreaded
frown, the "storm-signal" that his own soldiers, as well as the enemy,
had learned to fear, appeared for a moment on his prominent forehead.
Then his face cleared again, and His Excellency looked around proudly.

No! The Victor of ---- was not afraid. His wall stood firm and swayed
not. For three months every report that emissaries brought to camp had
told of the enormous preparations being made by the enemy. For three
months they had been storing up ammunition and gathering together their
forces for the tremendous offensive. And the offensive had begun the
night before. The general knew that the crowd gaily thronging in the sun
would not read in the newspaper till the next morning that out at the
front a fierce battle had been raging for the past twenty hours, and
hardly sixty miles from the promenade shells were bursting without
cease, and a heavy rain of hot iron was pouring down upon his soldiers.
Three infantry attacks had already been reported as repulsed, and now
the artillery was hammering with frenzied fury, a prologue to fresh
conflicts during the night.

Well, let them come!

With a jerk, His Excellency sat up, and while his fingers beat on the
table in tune to the Blue Danube, a tense expression came into his face,