MY PET GERMANS AND THEIR MERRY WAYS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144713, 23 June 1915, Page 8

MY PET GERMANS AND THEIR MERRY WAYS.

WASTED WILES OF THE SLEUTHHOUNDS OF BERLIN. (By Percival Phillips, Express Special Correspondent in Holland.) My first pet German (Dutcli* frontier series) was a bluff, genial Hanoverian who suddenly loved England by order of tho, Wilhelmstrassc. I dismiss as unimportant two or three square-headed sleuth-hounds who dogged mo about Sluis last October and occasionally crossed the frontier at St. Anne-ter-Alnideii. after inviting me to accompany them “into Germany’' and making offensive, noises behind iheir moustaches. They were only navvies of tho spy industry. No, * my ,wide-waisted Hanoverian, who swore by tho spectacled Duke of Cumberland, was tho first serious shadow who stuck by me (on behalf of t his Government) when 1 began gathering news from Belgium. Ho arrived suddenly from nowhere, as do all my pet Germans, and vanished as mysteriously after an • acquaintance lasting nearly a week, during which period we wore together as much as two men can be. when one is unable to get rid of tho other. “WAITING FOR NEWS.” Ho wns not a spy—dear, no—merely waiting for nows of his son, a soldier of the Kaiser temporarily billeted at Conrtrai. s .Massively penial, ostentatiously frank, he talked of England with tolerance, even affection. Why should'wc not he friends? A^cs? It was not until the thiru day that he began mining his conversation, so to speak. Mo dug his way towards the subject of Belgium and its interest for British newspapers. Did I find it difficult to got messages through from Belgians—if any? Perhaps lie could help me. Frankly—his frankness was stupendous—how did I get my nows?_ I explained that it was brought hv trained leprechauns. Ho was puzzled. Woro they English? No, Irish. Ah Woro they civilians. I told him they were fairies.

Ho said it was a merry jest, and began to talk about tho broad tickets in Hanover. Next day ho tried a flanking movement. He suggested quite casually that “one of my couriers” might carry “a-little, message” to his son at Courtrai, who would ho glad to send mo back a few—harmless, of course—items of news. Next appeared a dapper little man m black clothes, x>olSshed hoots, and gold pince-nez—a plump little undertaker of a man who slid about softly and unobtrusively and talked French rather badly—for a broken Antwerp manufacturer.

’ THE UNDERTAKER’S MAN. Ho Boomed solidly respectable and reassuring and a little melancholy. Whenever ho entered a room 1 felt that bo was tiptoeing into a death chamber to screw down a corpse. For nearly a week wo met constimtly —in trains, restaurants, telegraph officer (where ho was always about to send a telegram to some one, but never did so), and on ono occasion I came upon his suddenly, talking German volubly with two ruined Hamburg merchants who were enjoying their mid-day Hate. We met at breakfast one morning, and half an hour later I found him travelling to The Hague in the same train. When wo alighted I went ono Way and ho another —apparently to conduct a funeral—so we mot quite casually in the hotel where I had an appointment. He lingered for a moment outside the •Royal Restaurant while I lunched. He was pacing the platform at the electric railway station at* 4 o’clock with an air of gentle sorrow—how surprised he was to seo me 1 I got in a train-car at Rotterdam and ho whisked away in a taxi. When 1 entered my hotdl ho was sitting in the lobby musing on life and its griefs. This was a sample day. Entered then a German commercial gentleman, formerly in Manchester goods, speaking English perfectly, full of reminiscences of the Gambrinus in Regent Street, and the hope that he would some day see the Cafe Royal again. Ho kept his Hate in leash and was interested for the moment in journalistic mattery. TRANSFORMATION.

He was interested—only as a journalist—in naval matters and the Kitchener army, and he kindly volunteered to exchange news, his contribution being titbits from Cuxhavcn and Wilhelmshaven. Moreover, he had Socialist friends in Hamburg who were opposed to the war, and he liked to regale them with astounding facts showing tho growing strength of England. . . . I saw him again after some weeks. Ho had showed off his military moustache and adopted an American soft hot. Ho was still in journalism. . . . A plausible vonng man of Swiss extraction cultivated my acquaintance for a time. .He was more English than the English, and ho could not control himself when the word “German” was men r tioned. He was in Holland “waiting for orders” from his firm—manufacturers of watches —and his passport Was already endorsed for London. A Hollander,came up to us one afternoon and greeted the Swiss heartily as a German friend whom ho had not seon for years. . • Ho was an engined formerly employed by Count Zeppelin. He. too, has disappeared—not in the direction of England. Beauty in Distress sought an interview ono day—and wept at intervals during an hour's conversation about a dear friend (a subject of one of the Allies) who had escaped from Brussels. Beauty was a clever German woman who deserved her name. Her sole concern was for the present address of her friend the enemy* (now safely with his own people). Incidentally—and at this point' she dried her tears—she asked me if I thought it true that ho had been concerned in a certain alleged plot in Brussels, and whether I knew any of the wicked men who had involved him in it! She said several tunes that the war was not a personal matter, and sho hoped 1 would not consider tier a spy. Then she went hack to Tho Hague. You will see that life hero is not without interest. One meets so many now friends . . hut they always want to know tilings.