“Perhaps there will be something waiting at home,” he added in his hoarse barrack-yard voice.

We drove through a white gate into a little drive which brought us up in front of a long, low villa.  Neither father nor son had opened their lips to me during the drive from the station and I had not ventured to put a question to either of them, but I knew we were in Potsdam.  The little station in the woods was Wild-Park, I suspected, the private station used by the Emperor on his frequent journeys and situated in the grounds of the New Palace.  All the officials of the Prussian Court have villas at Potsdam, though why I had been brought there in connection with an affair that must surely rather interest the Wilhelm-Strasse or the Police Presidency was more than I could fathom.

There was a frightful scene in the hall.  Without any warning the General turned on the orderly who had opened the door and screamed abuse at him.  “Camel!  Ox!  Sheep’s-head!” he roared, his face and shining pate deepening their vermilion hue.  “Do I give orders that they shall be forgotten?  What do you mean?  You ass....”  He put his white-gloved hands on the man’s shoulders and shook him until the fellow’s teeth must have rattled in his head.  The orderly, white to the lips, hung limp in the old man’s grasp, muttering apologies:  “Ach!  Exzellenz!  Exzellenz will excuse me....”

It was a revolting spectacle, but it did not make the least impression on the son, who, putting down his cap and great-coat and unhooking his sword, led me into a kind of study.  “These orderlies are such thickheads!” he said.

“Rudi!  Rudi!” a hoarse, strident voice screamed from the hall.  The lieutenant ran out.

“You’ve got to take the fellow to Berlin to-night.  The message was here all the time—­that numskull Heinrich forgot it.  And we’ve got to keep the fellow here till then!  An outrage, having the house used as a barrack for a rascally detective!” Thus much I heard, as the door had been left open.  Then it closed and I heard no more.

As I had heard this much, there was a certain irony in the invitation to dinner subsequently conveyed to me by the young Uhlan.  There was nothing for it but to accept.  I knew I was caught deep in the meshes of Prussian discipline, every one had his orders and blindly carried them out, from the garrulous Major on the frontier to this preposterous Exzellenz, this Imperial aide-de-camp of Potsdam.  I was already a tiny cog in a great machine.  I should have to revolve or be crushed.

His Excellency left me in no doubt on this point.  When I was ushered into his study, after a much-needed wash and a shave, he received me standing and said point-blank:  “Your orders are to stay here until ten o’clock to-night, when you will be taken to Berlin by Lieutenant Count von Boden.  I don’t know you, I don’t know your business, but I have received certain orders concerning you which I intend to carry out.  For that reason