FROM THE NEUTRAL NATIONS.
[The recent boom in the export of copper from America to the neutral nations is very significant. If the enemy's supplies of this article—an essential in the manufacture of cartridges, etc.—were cut off, the war would come to a speedy end. The figures for September and October, 1914, show an increase of nearly 400 per cent. over the corresponding figures for 1918.]
Whose gallant ships (may Heaven speed 'em)
Defend the wide world's liberties
Against the common foe of Freedom;
Doubt not where our true feelings lie;
We would not have you come a cropper,
Although it suits us to supply
That common foe with copper.
Beneath whose ample wings we snuggle,
Safe from the Kaiser's culture-lust
And free to live and smile—and smuggle;
Devoted to the peaceful arts,
We keep our conduct strictly proper,
Yet all the time you have our hearts
(And Germany our copper).
Who crush the tyrant's bold ambitions,
Peace hath her profits, all her own,
Derived from contraband munitions;
And you who fight for Freedom's aims
Will surely shrink to put a stopper
Upon our bagmen's righteous claims
And burst the boom in copper.
And, like the tar's connubial token,
"It doesn't matter what we do"
If we but keep that pledge unbroken;
So while we pray for Prussia's fall,
And look to your stout arm to whop her,
We mean to answer every call
She makes on us for copper.
O. S.
THE KAISER'S LOST CHANCE.
I FOUND him gazing intently at the framed Bill of Fare by the main door of the Restaurant Furioso, where I had often lunched at his table.
"Hullo, Fritz!" I exclaimed. "What are you doing out here? Have you been sacked?"
"Ach, Main Herr," he answered, "there has of the German waiters what you call an up-round been. I prove myself Swiss; I invoke the memory of William Tell and the Alpine Club, but the proprietor say that he take no risk, and out I go. But no matter. I myself was myself to have sacked, but he spoke too quick."
I said I was sorry and asked whether he meant to go back to Switzerland. Fritz winked and tapped his breast pocket.
"Perhaps," he said. "I am rich, I have money. But first I buy new clothes and then I lunch at my own table at the Furioso."
"Come where you can tell me all about it," said I, scenting a story, and he led me to a quiet tavern in a back street.
"Beer," was his answer to my first question. "English beer. I have done with Germany."
"I thought you said you were Swiss," I remarked.
"That is so," he replied; "but I have served Germany, and, ach! she have the thankless tooth of the serpent's child. I have read your Shakspeare. But you shall know all," he went on. "Already the police know all, and they laugh in my face. They call me fool, but I have money, and the Kaiser has missed his chance.
"Listen, Mein Herr! I have been one of Steinhauer's spies. He is the Master Spy and came over to England with the Kaiser, and he stayed, I am told, at Buckingham Palace. But Steinhauer is a fool, and I tell him so in my last letter. One day, a month ago, a gentleman dine at my table: he speak gcod English and wear London clothes, but I suspect him German, and when I see him eat I know. Some English officers also dine in the room, and he look at them—ach! as there were sour apples in his stomach. So I speak in German to Hans at the next table, and, when I give the bill, the gentleman point out a too-much charge for the butter he have not; I bend my head to read, and he whisper in my ear in German."
"Ah!" I said. "I can guess the next part about the secret meeting and the false name and so on. But tell me how the Kaiser missed his chance."
"Well," he resumed, "I become a spy. My duty was to listen to English officers who dine at the Furioso, and to send reports to Steinhauer through a cutter of hairs in Soho, who call himself Ephraim Smiley, but his right name is Johann Schnitzelbrod. One night three young officers dine at my table and talk much about the British Army. One say the Arsenal is weak, another that the Rangers cannot shoot for nuts, and the third that the Palace is sure to go down next Saturday. 'Aha!' I say to myself, the Army is bad, and they fear Zeppelins or revolution.' Steinhauer will know which, and I shall get the five-pound note. So I send my report; but Steinhauer is stupid and the five-pound note come not, and I say, 'Better luck on the following occasion.'
"A week later a cavalry officer dine at my table alone, and he talk to me for company. He ask me if I follow horses, and I say, ;Yes, formerly, when they drew the bus.' Then he laugh, and ask whether I ever have what he call a flutter on a dead snip. I scratch my head, but Hans interpret, and so, as you English say, I tumble. I tell him I would like, but for me the dead snip have not yet deceased. He say, 'Put all your tips on Mutton Chop for the Cookingham Stakes,' and he give me a shilling. Presently Hans tell me that Mutton Chop is not an English food, but a horse. He say he know of what he call a bookie who is not a Welshman, and if Mutton Chop win, I multiply my savings one hundert times.
"So I write to Steinhauer in haste: he must advise the Kaiser to put one hundred million marks on Mutton Chop, and the war will be paid for and something left over for poor Fritz. Then I take my savings from the bank and pawn my clothes, and much money goes to the bookie to back Mutton Chop. Well, the good Mutton Chop roll home—that is what Hans call it, and he is a racing-instructed; he has been waiter at Ascot, and once he go to see the City and South London. The same day come a letter from Steinhauer that I am a Schweinkopf, and he shall advise the Kaiser no such thing; and he dismiss me with notting.
But I go to the bookie, who laugh and pay me one tausend pound. He did not care; he make ten tausend from the many fools who back German Sausage. So I write one last letter to Steinhauer and say, 'Schweinkopf yourself! Stew in your own Sauerkraut!' He get another spy to denounce me, but I find the police have opened all my letters, and they laugh in my face. But the superintendent say. 'Much obliged, Herr Fritz! Thanks to you, I also make my bitchen on Mutton Chop. When you get another dead snip, pass it on.'"
Then I ordered Fritz another English beer, and gave him an introduction to my own tailor.
