“They are?  Then I advise them to follow the example set by the Englishman:  Never try to get up a conversation while traveling with a German.  It is a disagreeable task;” and I settled back behind my paper.

How had he found out that I was an American?  Was I known?  And for what reason was I known?  To my knowledge I had never committed any offence to the extent that I must be watched like a suspect.  What his object was and how he came to know that I was an American was a mystery to me.  I was glad that the journey would last but an hour or so longer.  The train arrived at the capital late at night.  As I went to inquire about my luggage I saw my late fellow passenger joined by another officer.  The two began talking earnestly, giving me occasional side-long glances.  The mystery was deepening.  In passing them I caught words which sounded like “under another name” and “positive it is he.”  This was anything but reassuring to me.  At length they disappeared, only to meet me outside the station.  It got into my head that I was a marked man.  A feeling of discomfort took possession of me.  Germans are troublesome when they get an idea.  I was glad to get into the carriage which was to take me to my hotel.  The driver seemed to have some difficulty in starting the horse, but I gave this no attention.  When the vehicle did start it was with a rapidity which alarmed me.  Corner after corner was turned, and the lights went by in flashes.  It was taking a long time to reach my hotel, I thought.  Suddenly it dawned upon me that the direction we were going was contrary to my instructions.  I tried to open the window, but it refused to move.  Then I hammered on the pane, but the driver was deaf, or purposely so.

“Hi there!” I thoughtlessly yelled in English, “where the devil are you going?”

No one paid any attention to my cries.  It was becoming a serious matter.  The lights grew fewer and fewer, and presently there were no lights at all.  We were, I judged, somewhere in the suburbs.  I became desperate and smashed a window.  The carriage stopped so abruptly that I went sprawling to the bottom.  I was in anything but a peaceful frame of mind, as they say, when the door swung open and I beheld, standing at the side of it, the officer who had accompanied me from the frontier.

“What tomfoolery is this?” I demanded.  I was thoroughly incensed.

“It means that Herr will act peacefully or be in danger of a broken head,” was the mind-easing reply of my quondam fellow passenger.  The driver then came down from the box, and I saw that he was the officer who had joined us at the station.

“If it is a frolic,” I said, “one of your beer hall frolics, the sooner it is ended the better for you.”

The two laughed as if what I had said was one of the funniest things imaginable.

“Get out!”

“With pleasure!” said I.