for the Fatherland, and yet beyond all that had been able to afford
all those little knickknacks that make a home so pleasant and that in
their humble little way were luxury. And while the Kaiser looked the
two young children laughed as they played on the floor, not seeing
that face at the window.

Why! Look at the helmet. That was lucky. A bullet hole right through
the front of it. That must have gone very close to the man's head. How
ever did it get through? It must have glanced upwards as bullets
sometimes do. The hole was quite low in the helmet. It would be
dreadful to have bullets coming by close like that. The firelight
flickered, and the lamp shone on, and the children played on the
floor, and the man was smoking out of a china pipe; he was strong and
able and young, one of the wealth-winners of Germany.

``Have you seen?'' said the phantom.

``Yes,'' said the Kaiser. It was well, he thought, that a Kaiser
should see how his people lived.

At once the fire went out and the lamp faded away, the room fell
sombrely into neglect and squalor, and the soldier and the children
faded away with the room; all disappeared phantasmally, and nothing
remained but the helmet in a kind of glow on the wall, and the woman
sitting all by herself in the darkness.

``It has all gone,'' said the Kaiser.

``It has never been,'' said the phantom.