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Show VjflEiP BIRMINGHAM WNU Sorvlct. "Just yon clear off, Ilka e food man," said Tommy. "I've had enongb of you for one morning." His mind was Btlll full of his hotel ho-tel theory, and he wag quite determined deter-mined not to be robbed by any plausible plaus-ible stranger. He turned away and walked across the hall toward the row of telephone boxes. He had no Intention of telephoning to any one. Indeed, he knew no one In Berlin to whom he could telephone, nor could he have given a number In German. He merely wished to escape from Caslmlr. But Caslmlr was not an easy man to shake off. He followed Tommy. "You wish to go to the Mascotte tonight," he said. "Please?" The word "Please" was evidently In constant use In Caslmlr's language. His repetition of It In English gave a curious effect of extreme politeness to his conversation. Tommy had heard of the Mascotte. My nephew, Emily's eldest boy, was In Berlin for some time as a subordinate subor-dinate member of the Inter-allied mission mis-sion of control. He knew all there was to know about the night life of the city. It Is a supper place, "d d expensive," but the dancing was "top hole." It was not the sort of dancing which the censors of the London county council would approve, ap-prove, but It was "top hole" and "not too, you know, only rather more so than you'd see at home." "Please, you will visit the Mascotte." Mas-cotte." Caslmlr nodded and smiled In a very confidential manner, as If he and Tommy shared a secret which no one else iu the world knew anything about. Tommy revised his opinion of the man. He was not. a hotel thief. He was a tout, engaged in securing customers for the Mascotte supper room. Tommy had heard of such 5!i. LSa bad no intention of putting put-ting himself into the hands of one of them. 7rli be there, naturally," said Caslmlr, "and" another quotation, this time disagreeably suggestive to Tommy's mind "Journeys end In lovers meeting, Every wise man's son doth know." This was going too far. Tommy meant to enjoy himself on his holiday. holi-day. He had discarded 'his clerical collar in order to do so more freely, but he had no wish to pursue unknown un-known ladies Into night clubs. In order or-der to get rid of Caslmlr finally he stepped Into the nearest telephone box. It was already occupied, and, since a telephone box is always a very small thing, he bumped into a lady who held the receiver to her ear. She was so Intent on what she was doing that she took no notice of Tommy. He most unwillingly beard what sb was saying. "Then let me tell you, young man, that there'll be trouble. Lord Edmund Ed-mund Troyte distinctly promised that my passport would be ready for me. Yes? What's that? I've been to the consulate three times and I'm going again. The consul is totally Incompetent Incom-petent and his clerics are rude. It's your business. What? Yes. I say it's your business. You're the third secretary, you say. That makes no difference. It's your business to see about that passport. "What on earth are you doing there and who are you?" Janet Church turned at last to Tommy, who had bumped into her again. She was fully dressed this time and the light in the telephone box was dim. But he recognized her at once as the lady who had stood talking German in the corridor. He also realized that she was in an exceedingly ex-ceedingly bad temper. Casimlr, with his suggestion of strange lady-loves at the Mascotte, was bad enough. Janet Church, thirsting for the blood of the third secretary, was worse. Tommy left the telephone box hurriedly. hur-riedly. Caslmlr was waiting for him outside. out-side. "Please." he said, "I have engaged a table for you at the Mascotte. It Is catalogued no, registered, no, I remember, you say booked, for the Graf von Norheys, please." "I don't exactly know what a Graf said Tommy, "but whatever' it is, I'm not one." "Please?" said Caslmlr. "Ah, I see. If it were possible in France, yes. M. le Marquis. There is no difficulty. difficul-ty. But her& Excellenz perhaps. Or Prlnz. Otherwise there is only Graf It will not be understood if I catalogue cata-logue the table for Herr Marquis. As your poet Shakespeare says, 'As you like it.'" (TO BE CONTINUED.) AN UNKNOWN VISITOR SYNOPSIS. In London the teller of the story of the adventures adven-tures of "King Tommy," and known hereafter as "Uncle Bill," is informed by Lord Norheys, son of an old friend, that Lord Troyte, head of the British foreign for-eign office, Norheys' uncle, has a schem to make him (Norheys) king of Lystrla, In central Europe, Eu-rope, through marriage to Calypso, Ca-lypso, daughter of King Wladis-laws, Wladis-laws, deposed monarch of that country. A financier, Procoplus Cable, knows there is oil in profusion pro-fusion In Lystrla, and with an English king on the throne the output could be secured for England. Eng-land. Norheys, in love with a stage danoer, Viola Temple, Is not enthusiastic over the proposition. propo-sition. The patriarch, Menelaus, highest ecclesiastical dignitary in Lystrla, is heartily in favor of the restoration of the monarchy, and Cable has generously financed the sentiment. Calypso is making mak-ing a living dancing In the "Mascotte," "Mas-cotte," Berlin cabaret. Norheys refuses to entertain the Idea of giving up Viola Temple, to whom he Is secretly engaged. "Uncle Bill's" sister Emily urges him to secure a passport from Lord Troyte for a certain Janet Church, strong-minded female who wants to visit Lystrla In the Interests of a society for world peace. Janet Church leaves for Berlin. "Uncle Bill" is again appealed to by his sister to find a certain curate (name not given) who has left his parish in Ireland for a visit to Berlin, and cannot be found. Lord Norheys and Viola Temple disappear from London. Procoplus Cable receives information infor-mation that Norheys, with the princess, has left there on his way to Lystrla, but Norheys appears ap-pears with the former Viola Temple, now his wife. The question ques-tion is, "Who is the man who has gone to Lystrla with the Princess Calypso?" Caslmlr Introduces himself, and Janet Church, vainly seeking from the BritlBh consulate consu-late a passport to Lystrla, becomes be-comes acquainted with the two men in the Adlon hotel. CHAPTER VII Continued That seemed a small result of so much conversation, and gave Tommy Tery little fresh information. The Caslmlr and the Istvan he had read on the visiting card, though in reversed re-versed order. Graf he took to be the German for count. "Tell him," be said, "that there's a mistake. He can't possibly want to see me. Ask him who he does want, and then get him to go down again and find the number of his friend's room." Janet started again. So did Caslmlr. Cas-lmlr. This time they talked for a quarter of an hour, fast and emphatically. emphat-ically. There is nothing In the ! world so irritating as hearing two people talk to each other In an unknown un-known language when you know they are talking about your affairs. Tommy Tom-my is the best tempered of men, but even he began to feel impatient. "He says," said Janet, turning to Tommy at last, "that he's sure your name is Norheys." "Is that all he said?" "That's all," said Janet. "Well, then, all I can say Is that I don't wonder the Germans lost the war. If It takes them half an hour to sny 'What's your name?' they can't expect to get on at war or anything else. It must be an utterly rotten language." Janet, who haled all Germans with a passionate Intensity during the war, has been developing a strong affection af-fection for them since the peace was signed. She cannot bear, now, to hear a word said against them and has transferred her dislike to the French. When Tommy insulted the German language she turned away and stalked down the corridor toward to-ward the bath. Casimlr has an amazing facility In quotation. " 'And the Imperial votaress passed on,' " he said, " 'In maiden meditation, medita-tion, fancy free.' Please." Caslmlr's English accent was by no means perfect. Tommy, though he ought to have recognized Shakespeare's Shake-speare's compliment to Queen Elizabeth, Eliza-beth, seemed to have thought that the count was still talking German. He darted Into his room and picked up his phrase book. He distinctly remembered re-membered that he had somewhere seen the sentence "Please go away." That was. ss I have said, a very good phrase book. "Please go away" is a thing which the traveler in a foreign for-eign land constantly wants to say to beggars, extortionate cabmen, guides, touts, and officials who want r. look at passports. Tommy grabbed the book, turned over the pages quickly, and came to the sentence he wanted. Unfortunately, the next sentence in the book was "Please sit down." Tommy, running his eyes hurriedly from the English to the German column, col-umn, picked up the wrong phrase. "Bitte setzen sle sich," he said. Casimlr could not verr woll uit down on the carpet In the corridor. So took Tommy's words to be an invitation in-vitation to enter the bedroom. Tommy Tom-my stood exactly In the middle of the doorway. Caslmir, bowing very politely, tried to pass him. Tommy suddenly recollected that all his money, his piles of German marks, lay on the table In the middle of the room. A horrible explanation of Caslmlr's Cas-lmlr's presence suggested itself. The man had made no mistake. He had not been sent to the wrong room by the clerk in the hotel office. He was a hotel thief. Tommy had heard of such people. They are Immensely daring, Immensely clever, and they adopt all sorts of ruses. They are often well dressed. They are always plausible. Tommy winked knowingly at Casimlr Cas-imlr to show that he understood the situation and cherished no ill-feeling. Then he firmly shut the door in his visitor's face. CHAPTER VIII An hour later Tommy stepped from the elevator Into the great central hall of the hotel. He had discarded his clerical stock. He wore a light blue tie Instead. He was still a young man, only a little more than twenty-six, not long enough in Holy Orders to have his profession recognizably recog-nizably written on his face. A bystander, by-stander, interested in his appearance, might have guessed him to be a young barrister, or perhaps a clerk In one of the higher branches of the civil service. But no one appeared to be the least interested in Tommy's appearance, ap-pearance, or to care what he was or what he did. The largo haJi was full of people. Hotel porters in red Jackets wheeled barrows of luggage in and out. Pageboys, Page-boys, as thickly decorated with buttons but-tons as any of their kind anywhere in the world, went to and fro wailing wail-ing the numbers of the rooms of the guests whom they sought guests whom visitors had come to see or for whom telephone calls had been made. Fussy travelers, newly arrived ar-rived and filled with a sense of their own Importance, crowded round the desk of the reception clerk and demanded de-manded rooms. Self-possessed elderly elder-ly men, mostly fat and often Jewish, lounged In deep chairs with cigars in their mouths and surveyed the scene through half-closed eyes. American Amer-ican tourists eddied round the newspaper news-paper stalls in the corner of the hall and clamored for the New York Herald. Her-ald. It was in their eyes a sign of the well nigh inconceivable stupidity and incompetence of all European peoples that the supply of New York Heralds was insufficient to meet their demands. The desk of a harassed woman who sold concert and theater tickets was besieged by ladles who did not know exactly what they wanted want-ed but hoped to secure seats at some agreeable entertainment by asking questions in bad German. A boy, rather older than the pages, stood at the swinging glass door and drove it round on Its pivot with vigorous pushes. He drove it faster and faster fast-er as more and more people passed In and out. His hope was that some time in the course of the morning he would succeed in hitting a slowly moving passer with the following wing of the door. Those who entered en-tered and left the hotel approached the whirling door very much in the spirit of medieval sportsmen who rode at the quintain. All this delighted Tommy. He had hitherto led a quiet and uneventful life, seldom disturbed by anything more exciting than a Sunday school treat. He watched the moving figures, fig-ures, gazed at the strange faces, listened lis-tened to a babel of different languages, lan-guages, and felt that this was exactly exact-ly what he had come to Berlin to en-Joy. en-Joy. For some time he was content simply to stand watching and listening. listen-ing. Then he began to wonder what he had better do next. He had the whole day before him. His breast pocket was stuffed with money. He had a great city to explore. Before leaving home be had read up Baedeker's Guide to Berlin, an old copy borrowed from my sister Emily. Em-ily. He knew that there was a street called Unter den Linden which he ought to see, a park culled the Tier Garten, an avenue called the Sieges Alice, several churches and museums. There were theaters, picture galleries galler-ies and restaurants, all duly named and the nature Indicated by the worthy Baedeker. At the moment he felt more attracted toward a restaurant. res-taurant. His breakfast had been very light, and though it was only ten o'clock, he felt huagry. He wondered won-dered whether it would be possible to demand luncheon tn a Berlin restaurant restau-rant at that hour without exciting the derision of the waiters. He felt a light touch on his arm and looked round. Count Casimir stood beside him. |