The daily greeting had been exchanged and the proud grey beast had marched away to the music of a slumberous purr.  The Kreuz Zeitung and the Times underwent a final scrutiny and were pushed aside, and von Kwarl glanced aimlessly out at the July sunshine bathing the walls and windows of the Piccadilly Hotel.  Herr Rebinok, the plump little Pomeranian banker, stepped across the floor, almost as noiselessly as Wotan had done, though with considerably less grace, and some half-minute later was engaged in sliding pawns and knights and bishops to and fro on the chess-board in a series of lightning moves bewildering to look on.  Neither he nor his opponent played with the skill that they severally brought to bear on banking and statecraft, nor did they conduct their game with the politeness that they punctiliously observed in other affairs of life.  A running fire of contemptuous remarks and aggressive satire accompanied each move, and the mere record of the conversation would have given an uninitiated onlooker the puzzling impression that an easy and crushing victory was assured to both the players.

“Aha, he is puzzled.  Poor man, he doesn’t know what to do . . .  Oho, he thinks he will move there, does he?  Much good that will do him. . . .  Never have I seen such a mess as he is in . . . he cannot do anything, he is absolutely helpless, helpless.”

“Ah, you take my bishop, do you?  Much I care for that.  Nothing.  See, I give you check.  Ah, now he is in a fright!  He doesn’t know where to go.  What a mess he is in . . . "

So the game proceeded, with a brisk exchange of pieces and incivilities and a fluctuation of fortunes, till the little banker lost his queen as the result of an incautious move, and, after several woebegone contortions of his shoulders and hands, declined further contest.  A sleek-headed piccolo rushed forward to remove the board, and the erstwhile combatants resumed the courteous dignity that they discarded in their chess-playing moments.

“Have you seen the Germania to-day?” asked Herr Rebinok, as soon as the boy had receded to a respectful distance.

“No,” said von Kwarl, “I never see the Germania.  I count on you to tell me if there is anything noteworthy in it.”

“It has an article to-day headed, ‘Occupation or Assimilation,’” said the banker.  “It is of some importance, and well written.  It is very pessimistic.”

“Catholic papers are always pessimistic about the things of this world,” said von Kwarl, “just as they are unduly optimistic about the things of the next world.  What line does it take?”

“It says that our conquest of Britain can only result in a temporary occupation, with a ‘notice to quit’ always hanging over our heads; that we can never hope to assimilate the people of these islands in our Empire as a sort of maritime Saxony or Bavaria, all the teaching of history is against it; Saxony and Bavaria are part of the Empire because of their past history.  England is being bound into the Empire in spite of her past history; and so forth.”