Villa Elsa

th colossal success; swollen with a hundred years of victories and growth; as sure of its prowess and might as were the swaggering gods of its Valhallas.

Imperial Deutschland über Alles!

CHAPTER III

GARD KIRTLEY

Into this Triumphant Germany young Kirtley had come to recuperate from the sadness over the loss, the previous year, of his parents and from a siege of sickness. Still somewhat pale, somewhat weak, he showed the shock he had undergone. He had toured across southern Germany and up to Berlin where he had bidden good-by to his chance American traveling companion, Jim Deming, who was knocking about Italy and Teutonland. They had exchanged final addresses.

Kirtley, clean-shaven, with pleasant brown eyes, and brown hair brushed down flat, giving his head the appearance of smallness, looked very lank and Yankeeish among the robust, fat Teutons of the Saxon capital. He was entering Dresden on a late afternoo