Page:The man on horseback (IA manonhorseback00abdurich).pdf/55

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BARON HORST VON GÖTZ-WREDE
39

cial success. Too, a social lion, Seventh Avenue and the North side, the Spokane Club and the Country Club, native-born and Canadian-born, vied with each other in entertaining the visitor, who was plentifully supplied with money and had taken a suite at the new Davenport. He spoke freely and ingenuously to the reporters of the local and other Northwestern papers who quizzed him for copy.

"My reasons for coming to America? Oh, curiosity to see with my own eyes if the American women run true to the charming specimens which we see in Berlin, during the season; and anxiety—possibly tinged by a little envy, but you must not print this, gentlemen, if you please—to find out the secret for America's colossal advance in international affairs. For, gentlemen, I own up to it. We of my country are envious of you, and just a little afraid. I hope to Heaven that we shall always be friends—we Germans—and you—and"—he turned with a smile to Bob Defries, correspondent of the Victoria, B. C., Daily Colonist—"you—Canadians—British!" and it was natural that the Baron’s words were freely printed, quoted, and circulated.

He had brought letters along to Martin Wedekind from the latter's brother in Berlin. Too, Bertha told her father that the Baron and the younger comrades in his regiment had been most attentive to her during her stay in the German capital; and so Martin Wedekind was of necessity forced to play host-in-chief to the Prussian officer.

It was only to Tom Graves that he spoke his real mind.

"I don't like him," he said.

"Nor do I," growled Tom. "I like him about as well as a cold in the head."