Aunt Jane's Nieces in The Red Cross
Finally he asked:
"Which is Mr. Merrick?"
Hearing his name, Uncle John bowed.
"Huh! But the description does not fit you."
Captain Carg translated this.
"Why not?" demanded Uncle John.
"It says you are short, stout, blue-eyed, bald, forty-five years of age."
"Of course."
"You are not short; I think you are as tall as I am. Your eyes are not blue; they are olive green. You are not bald, for there is still hair over your ears. Huh! How do you explain that?"
"It's nonsense," said Uncle John scornfully.
Carg was more cautious in interpreting the remark. He assured the colonel, in German, that the description of Mr. Merrick was considered close enough for all practical purposes. But Grau was not satisfied. He went over the papers again and then turned to face the other officer.
"What do you think, General?" he asked, hesitatingly.
"Suspicious!" was the reply.
"I think so, myself," said the colonel. "Mark you: Here's a man who claims to come from Sangoa, a place no one has ever heard of; and the other has endorsements purporting to come from the highest officials in America. Huh! what does it mean?"
"Papers may be forged, or stolen from their proper owners," suggested the squinting general. "This excuse of coming here to get the wife of a hurt Belgian seems absurd. If they are really Red Cross workers, they are not attending to their proper business."
When the captain interpreted this speech Patsy said angrily:
"The general is an old fool."
"An idiot, I'll call him," added Uncle John. "I wish I could tell him so."
"You have told him," said the general in good English, squinting now more rapidly than ever, "and your manner of speech proves you to be impostors. I have never known a respectable Red Cross nurse, of any country, who called a distinguished officer a fool—and to his face."
"I didn't know you understood English," she said.
"That is no excuse!"
"But I did know," she added, "that I had judged you correctly. No one with a spark of intelligence could doubt the evidence of these papers.
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In a village there lived two men who had the self-same name. Both were named Claus. But one of them owned four horses, and the other owned only one horse; so to distinguish between them people called the man who had four horses Big Claus, and the man who had only one horse Little Claus. Now I'll tell you what happened to these two, for this is a true story.
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