Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-11-04
THE MAN WITH THE CLUB FOOT
Copyright. 1919
CHAPTER |
I ScoL , Rod in ROffprdaUt


Every one who came into the brightly lit
hotel vestibulc entered with a gush OF water
l felt | would rather die than face the
wind-swept streets of Rotterdam again.
l turned once more to the clerk who was
now busy at the key-rack.
Haven't You really corner? I wouldn't
mind where it was. - it Is only Tor the
night Come now b"
every sorry. sairc We have two gentle.
men sleeping in 2e bathrooms already III
YOU had reserved " And he shrug-
gcd his shoulders ana bent toward n visitor
who was demanding his key.
| | turned away with rage in my heart
What cursed fool I had been not to wire
from Groningen! had fully intended to-
but the extraordinary conversation had had
with Dlcty Allcrton had put everything else
| out of my head. At every hotel | had tried
it had been the same story-Coomans the
! Maae the Grand, all were fun to the bath
rooms. If had only wired
As passed out into the porch I be-
| thought myself of the porter A hotel por-
| ter had helped me out of a similar plight in
| Breslau once years ago. This porter. with
! his red drinll-sodden face and tarnshcd gold
| braid did not promise we'll, SO far as =
recommendation for lodging for the night
| was concerned Stil
] suppose IT WAS my mind dwelling on
| my experience at Breslau that made me adj
| dress the man in German When one has
been familiar with a foreign tongue from
ones boyhood, ii requires but very slight
| mental impulse to drop into it, From sueh
| slight beEnnngs do great enterprises spring.
| If I had known the immcnae ralnIiIcatlon or
| adventure that was to spread It's roots from
| that single question, verify believe my heart
| would have failed me and would have run
| forth into the night and the ram ana roanleu
| the streets til morning.
| We'll | found myself asking the man in
German If he knew where l could get
room for the night.
lie shot quick glance at me from under
| his reddened eyelids.
"rhc gentleman would doubtless like
German house?" he uueried.
You may hardly credit it. but my inter
view with DclSy Allerton that afternoon had
simply driven the war out of my mind. When
one has lived much among foreign peoples
ones mentality slips automatically into their
skin. | now thinking in Germany
least so it seems to me when ! look back
upon that highland L answered without
rejecting:
az don't care where it is as long AS I can
get somewhere to sleep out Of this Internal
rain"
THE gentleman can have good clean
bed at the Hotel Sixt in the little street they
call the Nos int Tuintie, on the canal behind
the Bourse The propretress Is good
German jawohl Frau Ann Schratt
her name is. The gentleman need only say
he comes from Franz at the Boppardcr Hot
I gave the man sulden and bade hm
get me cab.
1t was still pouring. AS ratified away
over the glstening cobblestoneS. my MIND
travelled back over the startling events of the
day. My talk with old Dicky had given me
sucb a mental lar that | found 1t at first we'll
nirh i,npossible to concentrate my thoughts
Tbot,s tho worst of shell-shocll You think
Won are cured YOU feel fit and well, and then
suddenly the machinery of your mind checks
and halts and creals Ever since / had left
hosptal convalescent after being wounded
on thn Sonr1,e ("eunshot wound in head and
cerabel concussion" the doctors called IT'D /
had trained myself, whenever my brain was
a., nanna to 20 back to the beginning Of
,birm. and work SLOWLY up to the present by
n,athodic,I stages
nt,s se, thnn +s~ I was boarded at
,,iIIh.,,,g a,d got +hroa rnonths' leave: then
Al a ,,,onth tn tho JittIefohns' bungalow in
,-orn,you. thsre 7 GOT the letter from picky
,W.,, ,,,o hafnro tha war had bnen In
,,artro,sbi,, Nth my brother Francis in the