Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/197

"But—he is a samurai, a soldier!" stammered Takagawa. "What have these—these gases to do with—"

"With war?" Kreutzer gave a cracked laugh. "Don't you know?"

"I know the ingredients. I know how the gas is produced."

"Oh, you do; do you?"

"Yes."

And Takagawa, turning on the right spigot in his fact-gathering brain, reeled off the correct formula in all its intricacies.

The professor laughed again. "And you mean to say," he asked in the same sibilant undertone, "that you have no idea what the gas is for—that you have no idea why Baron von Eschingen has honored us these six weeks with his spurred and booted presence?"

"Why—no!"

Kreutzer slapped his knees. "Blessed innocence!" he chuckled. "Blessed, spectacled, yellow-skinned, Asiatic innocence! It is— Well, never mind!"

He turned to the German students who were still talking excitedly among themselves.

"Silentium!" he thundered. "War is all very well, gentlemen. But we are not here to kill or to remake the map of Europe. We are here to learn about—" And then a lengthy Greek word and the hush of the classroom.

The baron, who had shed his pale-blue and silver regimentals for a uniform of gray-green, came in toward the end of the lesson. He spoke courteously to the students, who instinctively stood at attention, shook hands with Takagawa with his usual friendliness, and drew the professor into a corner where he engaged him in a low, heated conversation.