It was Herr Heartless, in disguise,
and using a disguised voice.
"Good again! Going, going - one - "
"Six hundred!"
Sensation. The crowd raised a cheer, and some one
cried out, "Go it, Green-patch!" This tickled the audience
and a score of voices shouted, "Go it, Green-patch!"
"Going - going - going - third and last call - one - two - "
"Seven hundred!"
"Huzzah! - well done, Crutches!" cried a voice. The crowd
took it up, and shouted altogether, "Well done, Crutches!"
"Splendid, gentlemen! you are doing magnificently.
Going, going - "
"A thousand!"
"Three cheers for Green-patch! Up and at him, Crutches!"
"Going - going - "
"Two thousand!"
And while the people cheered and shouted, "Crutches" muttered,
"Who can this devil be that is fighting so to get these
useless books? - But no matter, he sha'n't have them.
The pride of Germany shall have his books if it beggars
me to buy them for him."
"Going, going, going - "
"Three thousand!"
"Come, everybody - give a rouser for Green-patch!"
And while they did it, "Green-patch" muttered, "This cripple
is plainly a lunatic; but the old scholar shall have
his books, nevertheless, though my pocket sweat for it."
"Going - going - "
"Four thousand!"
"Huzza!"
"Five thousand!"
"Huzza!"
"Six thousand!"
"Huzza!"
"Seven thousand!"
"Huzza!"
"EIGHT thousand!"
"We are saved, father! I told you the Holy Virgin
would keep her word!" "Blessed be her sacred name!"
said the old scholar, with emotion. The crowd roared,
"Huzza, huzza, huzza - at him again, Green-patch!"
"Going - going - "
"TEN thousand!" As Givenaught shouted this, his excitement
was so great that he forgot himself and used his
natural voice. He brother recognized it, and muttered,
under cover of the storm of cheers -
"Aha, you are there, are you, besotted old fool? Take
the books, I know what you'll do with them!"
So saying, he slipped out of the place and the auction was
at an end. Givenaught shouldered his way to Hildegarde,
whispered a word in her ear, and then he also vanished.
The old scholar and his daughter embraced, and the former said,
"Truly the Holy Mother has done more than she promised,
child, for she has give you a splendid marriage portion
- think of it, two thousand pieces of gold!"
"And more still," cried Hildegarde, "for she has give
you back your books; the stranger whispered me that he
would none of them - 'the honored son of Germany must
keep them,' so he said. I would I might have asked
his name and kissed his hand and begged his blessing;
but he was Our Lady's angel, and it is not meet that we
of earth should venture speech with them that dwell above."
APPENDIX F
German Journals
The daily journals of Hamburg, Frankfort, Baden, Munich,
and Augsburg are all constructed on the same general plan.
I speak of these because I am more familiar with them
than with any other German papers. They contain no
"editorials" whatever; no "personals" - and this is rather
a merit than a demerit, perhaps; no funny-paragraph column;
no police-court reports; no reports of proceedings
of higher courts; no information about prize-fights
or other dog-fights, horse-races, walking-machines,
yachting-contents, rifle-matches, or other sporting
matters of any sort; no reports of banquet speeches;
no department of curious odds and ends of floating fact
and gossip; no "rumors" about anything or anybody;
no prognostications or prophecies about anything or anybody;
no lists of patents granted or sought, or any reference
to such things; no abuse of public officials, big or little,
or complaints against them, or praises of them; no religious
columns Saturdays, no rehash of cold sermons Mondays;
no "weather indications"; no "local item" unveiling of
what is happening in town - nothing of a local nature,
indeed, is mentioned, beyond the movements of some prince,
or the proposed meeting of some deliberative body.
After so formidable a list of what one can't find
in a German daily, the question may well be asked,
What CAN be found in it? It is easily answered: A child's
handful of telegrams, mainly about European national and
international political movements; letter-correspondence about
the same things; market reports. There you have it.
That is what a German daily is made of. A German
daily is the slowest and saddest and dreariest of the
inventions of man. Our own dailies infuriate the reader,
pretty often; the German daily only stupefies him.
Once a week the German daily of the highest class lightens
up its heavy columns - that is, it thinks it lightens
them up - with a profound, an abysmal, book criticism;
a criticism which carries you down, down, down into
the scientific bowels of the subject - for the German
critic is nothing if not scientific - and when you come
up at last and scent the fresh air and see the bonny
daylight once more, you resolve without a dissenting voice
that a book criticism is a mistaken way to lighten up
a German daily. Sometimes, in place of the criticism,
the first-class daily gives you what it thinks is a gay
and chipper essay - about ancient Grecian funeral customs,
or the ancient Egyptian method of tarring a mummy,
or the reasons for believing that some of the peoples
who existed before the flood did not approve of cats.
These are not unpleasant subjects; they are not
uninteresting subjects; they are even exciting subjects
- until one of these massive scientists gets hold of them.
He soon convinces you that even these matters can
be handled in such a way as to make a person low-spirited.
As I have said, the average German daily is made up
solely of correspondences - a trifle of it by telegraph,
the rest of it by mail. Every paragraph has the side-head,
"London," "Vienna," or some other town, and a date.
And always, before the name of the town, is placed a letter
or a sign, to indicate who the correspondent is, so that
the authorities can find him when they want to hang him.
Stars, crosses, triangles, squares, half-moons, suns
- such are some of the signs used by correspondents.
