“Are you well loved by the people?” Fred asked him politely.

“Bah!  Sie wollen wohl beliebt werden!* Not I!  Not we!  Of what value is the love of such people?  Their fear is what we cultivate!  Having made them afraid of us, we successfully make them work our will!  But why should I trouble to explain?  In a few years there will only be one government of Africa!  One, I tell you, and that German!  You English are not fit to govern colonies!  You are mawkishly sentimental!  You think more of the feelings of a black man and of the rights of his women than of progress—­advancement—­kultur!  Bah!  I tell you they have no feelings a real man need consider!  They are only fit for furthering the aims of us Germans!  And their women have no rights!  None whatever!  You know, I suppose, that it is the policy of the German government to encourage the spread of Muhammedanism in Africa?  Well, under the Muhammedan law as given in the Koran women have no souls!  That is good!  That is as it should be!  No women have souls!”

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You want to be popular, don’t you!
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“How about your own mother?” Fred suggested.

“She was a good Prussian!  She was a super-woman!  Not to be mentioned in the same breath with women of any other race!  Yet even she—­the good Prussian mother—­could not hold a candle to a man!  Her business was to raise sons for Prussia, and she did it!  I have eight brothers, all in the army, and only one sister; she has four sons already!”

“Strange that your nation should breed like that!” said Fred.

“Not strange at all!” answered Schubert.  “We are needed to conquer the world!  Think, for instance, when we have conquered the Congo Free State, and taken away East and South Africa from England—­to say nothing of Egypt and India!—­how many Prussian sergeant-majors we shall want!  Donnerwetter!  Do you think we Germans will long be satisfied with this miserable section of East Africa that was all the English left to us on this coast?  We use this for a foothold, that is all!  We use this to gain time and get ready!  You think perhaps I do not know, eh?  I am only feldwebel—­non-commissioned officer, you call it.  Well and good.  I tell you our officers talk all the time of nothing else!  And they don’t care who hears them!”

The Jew gave Fred his bill, scrawled on a piece of wrapping paper.  Schubert snatched it away and crumpled it into a ball.

“Kreutzblitzen!  You are my guests to-night!  I invited you!”

“Thanks” Fred answered, “but we don’t care to be your guests.  Here,” he said, turning to the Jew, “take your, money!”

Schubert said nothing, but eyed the Jew with a perfectly blank face, as if he watched to see whether the man would damn himself or not.

“Take your money!” repeated Fred. But the Jew turned his back and busied himself with bottles at the side-table.