Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-11-28
THE MAN WITH THE CLUB FOOT
WILL
"otto will show you what
By VALENTINE WILLIAMS

now" he went on. "otto will show you what
to do! -
And so found myself, within twenty-four
hours. spy, male nurse and waiter in turn
am loath to dwell on the degradation OF
the days that followed. That cellar tavern
was foul sink OF iniqulty, and in serving
the dregs of humanity that gathered nightly
'there felt had indeed sunk to the lowest
depths. The place regular thieves
Kitchen what is called in the hideous
1lddlsh jargon that is the criminal slang or
modern Germany "Raschemme." Never IN
my life have l seen such british faces as
those that leered at me nightly through the
smoke haze as shufiled from table to table
IN my mean German clothes. Gallows' birds,
sneak thieves, receivers. bullies prostitutes
and harpies of every description came to-
gether every evening in Herr Haase's beer
cellar Many of the men wore the soied
ana faded tield-gray of the soldier back from
the front, and in looking at their sordid.
NuIplhe faces. mfamed with drink, ! felt
misery.
The conversation was all of crime and
deeds of violence. The men back from the
front told gloatingly OF rapine and feastings
IN lonely Belgian villages or dwet ghoui-
!shIF on the horrors of the battlefield the
mounds OF decaying corpses, the ghastly mutt
latlons they had seen on the dead There
were tales, too, of vengeance" wreaked on
the treacherous English" One story, in par
tcuIar, OF the fate OF Scottish sergeant
der HIGHLANDER" they called him in
ths oft-told tale . - still makes me Quiver
WIN impotent rage when think of It.
one evening the name of the Hotel Espls-
maze caught my ear l approached the table
ana found two hashily dressed bules and a
b"draggled drah from the streets talking in
admiration of my exploit.
'Iubfoot met his match that time" the
woman cried. THE dirty dog! But why
dtdn't Ii'i this English spy make a job OF It and
XIII the scum? Pah!"
And she spat elegantly into the sawdust
on the floor
1 wouldn't be In that fellows shoes for
something" muttered one of the men, mo
one ever had the better of Clubfoot yet. Do
you remember Menhardt. Franz? He tried
TO cheat Clubfost, and we know what hap
pened to him !"
They're raking the whole city for this
Itnshshman,' answered the other man.
Nogel who works for Section Seven, you
Know the man l mean, was telling me.
IheyVe done every hotel in Berlin and the
suburbs, but they haven't found him. They
raided Bauers in the Favoriten- -Strasse last
night. The Englishman wasn't there but
they got three or four others they were
looking for-Fritz and another deserter in
cluded. l was nearly there myself"
was always hearing references OF this
kind to my exploit. I never spoken Of
except in terms of admiration, but the name
of Clubfoot--der Stelze-excited only execra-
ticn and terror
lived In daily fear of a raid at Haase's
Why the place had escaped so long. with
all that riff-raff assembled there nightly, I
couldn't imagine. 1t was one Of those de-
fects in German organization which puzzle
the best of us at times. In the meantime
1 was powerless to escape. The first thing
Haase had done was to take away my papers
to send them to the police. as he explained
but he never gave them back. and when I
hnn he nff wit