Our compliments to the Rev. PERCY WESTON, pastor of this pious and patriot flock.
[Extracts from a book which is, no doubt, having as large a sale in Germany as _What I Found Out_, by an English Governess, is having in this country.]
I shall never forget my arrival at the house of my new employers. Into the circumstances which forced me to earn my living as a governess in a strange country I need not now go. Sufficient that I had obtained a situation in the house of a Mr. Brigsworth, an Englishman of high position living in one of the most fashionable suburbs of London. "Chez Nous," The Grove, Cricklewood, was the address of my new home, and thither on that memorable afternoon I wended my way.
"The master and mistress are out," said the maid. "Perhaps you would like to go straight to the nursery and see the children?"
"Thank you," I said, and followed her upstairs. Little did I imagine the amazing scene which was to follow!
In the nursery my two little charges were playing with soldiers; a tall and apparently young man was lying on the floor beside them. At my entrance he scrambled to his feet.
"Stop the battle a moment," he said, "while we interrogate the invader."
"I am Fräulein Schmidt," I introduced myself, "the new governess."
"And I," he said with a bow, "am Lord Kitchener. You have arrived just in time. Another five minutes and I should have wiped out the German army."
"Oh shut up, Uncle Horace, you wouldn't," shouted one of the boys.
It was Lord Kitchener! He had shaved off his heavy moustache, and by so doing had given himself a deceptive appearance of youth, but there could be no doubt about his identity. Horatio Herbert Kitchener, the great English War Lord! In the light of after-events, how instructive was this first meeting!
"What is the game?" I asked, hiding my feelings under a smile. "England against Germany?"
"England and Scotland and Ireland and Australia and a few others. We have ransacked the nursery and raked them all in."
So even at this time England had conceived the perfidious idea of forcing her colonies to fight for her!
"And some Indian soldiers?" I asked, nodding at half-a-dozen splendid Bengal Lancers. It struck me even then as very significant; and it is now seen to be proof that for years previously England had been plotting an invasion of the Fatherland with a swarm of black mercenaries.