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MEIN KAMPF

The Stalag Edition:

The Only Complete and Officially Authorised English

Translation Ever Issued

ADOLF HITLER
Ostara Publications

Mein Kampf

The Stalag Edition: The Only Complete and Officially Authorised

English Translation Ever Issued

By Adolf Hitler

Translator: Unknown NSDAP member.

First issued as

My Struggle

By Adolf Hitler

Zentral Verlag Der NSDAP, Franz Eher Nachf. GMBH 1937–1944.

This edition

Ostara Publications

http://ostarapublications.com
Original title page of a copy of the only official English translation of
Mein Kampf ever issued, complete with Stalag camp number 357
stamp.
Stalag 357 was located in Kopernikus, Poland, until September 1944,
when it was moved to the old site of the former Stalag XI-D, near
the town of Fallingbostel in Lower Saxony, in north-western
Germany.

Its internees included British air crews, and later, British soldiers
captured at the Battle of Arnhem.
CONTENTS
AUTHOR’S PREFACE

VOLUME ONE A Reckoning

CHAPTER 1: MY HOME

CHAPTER II: LEARNING AND SUFFERING IN VIENNA

CHAPTER III: VIENNA DAYS—GENERAL REFLECTIONS

CHAPTER IV: MUNICH

CHAPTER V: THE WORLD WAR

CHAPTER VI: WAR PROPAGANDA

CHAPTER VII: THE REVOLUTION IN 1918

CHAPTER VIII: THE BEGINNING OF MY POLITICAL ACTIVITIES

CHAPTER IX: THE GERMAN LABOUR PARTY

CHAPTER X: THE COLLAPSE OF THE SECOND REICH

CHAPTER XI: NATION AND RACE

CHAPTER XII: THE FIRST STAGE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE

NATIONAL SOCIALIST

GERMAN LABOUR PARTY

VOLUME TWO The National Socialist Movement

CHAPTER 1: WELTANSCHAUUNG AND PARTY

CHAPTER II: THE STATE

CHAPTER III: CITIZENS AND SUBJECTS OF THE STATE

CHAPTER IV: PERSONALITY AND THE IDEAL OF THE VÖLKISCH

STATE

CHAPTER V: WELTANSCHAUUNG AND ORGANISATION

CHAPTER VI: THE FIRST PHASE OF OUR STRUGGLE—THE

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE

SPOKEN WORD

CHAPTER VII: THE STRUGGLE WITH THE REDS

CHAPTER VIII: THE STRONG ARE STRONGER WITHOUT ALLIES

CHAPTER IX: NATURE AND ORGANISATION OF THE STORM

TROOPS

CHAPTER X: THE MASK OF FEDERALISM

CHAPTER XI: PROPAGANDA AND ORGANISATION

CHAPTER XII: THE PROBLEM OF THE TRADEUNIONS

CHAPTER XIII: THE GERMAN POLICY OF ALLIANCES

CHAPTER XIV: EASTERN BIAS OR EASTERN POLICY

CHAPTER XV: THE RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENCE

EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S PREFACE

On April 1st, 1924, I began to serve my sentence of detention in the

Fortress of Landsberg am Lech, following the verdict pronounced by
the Munich People’s Court on that day.

After years of uninterrupted labour it was now possible for the first
time to begin a work for which many had asked and which I myself
felt would be profitable for the Movement. I therefore decided to
devote two volumes to a description not only of the aims of our
Movement, but also of its development.

There is more to be learned from this than from any purely

doctrinaire treatise.

This has also given me the opportunity of describing my own

development in so far as such a description is necessary to the

understanding of the first as well as of the second volume and to
refute the unfounded tales which the Jewish press has circulated
about me.

In this work I turn not to strangers, but to those followers of the

Movement whose hearts belong to it and who wish to study it more
profoundly.

I know that fewer people are won over by the written, than by the
spoken, word and that every great movement on this earth owes its
growth to great speakers and not to great writers.

Nevertheless, in order to achieve more equality and uniformity in the

defence of any doctrine, its fundamental principles must be
committed to writing. May these two volumes therefore serve as
building stones which I contribute to the common task.
The Fortress, Landsberg am Lech.

At half-past twelve on the afternoon of November 9th, 1923, those

whose names are given below fell in front of the Feldherrnhalle and
in the forecourt of the former War Ministry in Munich as loyal
believers in the resurrection of their people:

Alfarth, Felix, Merchant, born July 5th, Bauriedl, Andreas, Hatter,

born May 4th, Casella, Theodor, Bank Official, born August 8th,
Ehrlich, Wilhelm, Bank Official, born August 19th, Faust, Martin,
Bank Official, born January 27th, Hechenberger, Ant., Mechanic, born
September 28th, Koerner, Oskar, Merchant, born January 4th, Kuhn,
Karl, Headwaiter, born July 26th, Laforce, Karl, Student of
Engineering, born October 2 8th, Neubauer, Kurt, Man-servant, born
March 27th, Pape, Claus von, Merchant, born August 16th, Pfordten,
Theodor von der, Councillor to the Supreme Provincial Court, born
May 14th, Rickmers, Joh., retired Cavalry Captain, born May 7th,
Scheubner-Richter, Max Erwin von, Dr. of Engineering, born January
9th, Stransky, Lorenz, Ritter von, Engineer, born March 14th, Wolf,
Wilhelm, Merchant, born October 19th, The socalled national
authorities refused to allow the dead heroes a common grave. I
therefore dedicate to them the first volume of this work, as a
common memorial, in order that they, as martyrs to the cause, may
be a permanent inspiration to the followers of our Movement.

The Fortress,

Landsberg am Lech,

October 16th, 1924.

VOLUME ONE A RECKONING

CHAPTER 1: MY HOME

To-day I consider it a good omen that Destiny appointed Braunau-

on-the-Inn to be my birthplace, for that little town is situated just on
the frontier between those two German States, the reunion of which
seems, at least to us of the younger generation, a task to which we
should devote our lives, and in the pursuit of which every possible
means should be employed.

German-Austria must be restored to the great German Fatherland,

and not on economic grounds. Even if the union were a matter of
economic indifference, and even if it were to be disadvantageous
from the economic standpoint, it still ought to take place. People of
the same blood should be in the same Reich.

The German people will have no right to engage in a colonial policy

until they have brought all their children together in one State.
When the territory of the Reich embraces all Germans and proves
incapable of assuring them a livelihood, only then can the moral
right arise, from the need of the people, to acquire foreign territory.
The plough is then the sword, and the tears of war will produce the
daily bread for the generations to come.

For this reason the little frontier town appeared to me as the symbol
of a great task, but in another respect it teaches us a lesson that is
applicable to our day. Over a hundred years ago this sequestered
spot was the scene of a tragic calamity which affected the whole
German nation and will he remembered for ever, at least in the
annals of German history.

At the time of our Fatherland’s deepest humiliation, a Nürnberg

bookseller, Johannes Palm, an uncompromising nationalist and an
enemy of the French, was put to death here because he had loved
Germany even in her misfortune. He obstinately refused to disclose
the names of his associates, or rather the principals who were
chiefly responsible for the affair, just as Leo Schlageter did.

The former, like the latter, was denounced to the French by a

government official, a director of police from Augsburg who won
ignoble renown on that occasion and set the example which was to
be copied at a later date by the German officials of the Reich under
Herr Severing’s regime.

In this little town on the Inn, hallowed by the memory of a German

martyr a town that was Bavarian by blood but under the rule of the
Austrian State, my parents were domiciled towards the end of the
last century. My father was a civil servant who fulfilled his duties
very conscientiously.

My mother looked after the household and lovingly devoted herself

to the care of her children of that period I have not retained many
memories, because after a few years my father had to leave that
frontier town which I had come to love so much and take up a new
post farther down the Inn valley, at Passau, therefore, actually in
Germany itself.

In those days it was the usual lot of an Austrian civil servant to be

transferred periodically from one post to another. Not long after
coming to Passau my father was transferred to Linz, and while there
he retired to live on his pension, but this did not mean that the old
gentleman would now rest from his labours.

He was the son of a poor cottager, and while still a boy he grew
restless and left home. When he was barely thirteen years old he
buckled on his satchel and set forth from his native country parish.
Despite the dissuasion of villagers who could speak from
‘experience’, he went to Vienna to learn a trade there.

This was in the fifties of last century.

It was a sore trial, that of deciding to leave home and face the
unknown, with three gulden in his pocket but when the boy of
thirteen was a lad of seventeen and had passed his apprenticeship
examination as a craftsman, he was not content. On the contrary,
the persistent economic depression of that period and the constant
want and misery strengthened his resolution to give up working at a
trade and strive for ‘something higher.’

As a boy it had seemed to him that the position of the parish priest
in his native village was the highest in the scale of human
attainment, but now that the big city had enlarged his outlook the
young man looked up to the dignity of a state official as the highest
of all. With the tenacity of one whom misery and trouble had already
made old when only half-way through his youth, the young man of
seventeen obstinately set out on his new project and stuck to it until
he won through.

He became a civil servant. He was about twenty-three years old, I

think, when he succeeded in making himself what he had resolved
to become. Thus he was able to keep, the vow he had made as a
poor boy, not to return to his native village until he was ‘somebody.’
He had gained his end, but in the village there was nobody who
remembered him as a little boy, and the village itself had become
strange to him.

Now at last, when he was fifty-six years old, he gave up his active
career, but he could not bear to be idle for a single day. On the
outskirts of the small market-town of Lambach in Upper Austria he
bought a farm and tilled it himself. Thus, at the end of a long and
hard-working career, he returned to the life which his father had led.

It was at this period that I first began to have ideals of my own. I

spent a good deal of time scampering about in the open, on the long
road from school, and mixing with some of the roughest of the boys,
which caused my mother many anxious moments. All this tended to
make me something quite the reverse of a stay-at-home.
I gave scarcely any serious thought to the question of choosing a
vocation in life, but I was certainly quite out of sympathy with the
kind of career which my father had followed. I think that an inborn
talent for speaking now began to develop and take shape during the
more or less strenuous arguments which I used to have with my
comrades.

I had become a juvenile ringleader who learned well and easily at

school, but was rather difficult to manage. In my free time I
practised singing in the choir of the monastery church at Lambach,
and thus it happened that I was placed in a very favourable position
to be emotionally impressed again and again by the magnificent
splendour of ecclesiastical ceremonial.

What could be more natural for me than to look upon the abbot as
representing the highest human ideal worth striving for, just as the
position of the humble village priest had appeared so to my father in
his own boyhood days?

At least that was my idea for a while, but the childish disputes I had
with my father did not lead him to appreciate his son’s oratorical
gifts in such a way as to see in them a favourable promise for such a
career, and so he naturally could not understand the boyish ideas I
had in my head at that time. This contradiction in my character
made him feel somewhat anxious.

As a matter of fact, that transitory yearning after such a vocation

soon gave way to hopes that were better suited to my temperament.
Browsing among my father’s books, I chanced to come across some
publications that dealt with military subjects. One of these
publications was a popular history of the Franco-German War of
1870–71.

It consisted of two volumes of art illustrated periodical dating from

those years. These became my favourite reading. In a little while
that great and heroic conflict began to occupy my mind, and from
that time onwards I became more and more enthusiastic about
everything that was in any way connected with war or military
affairs.

The story of the Franco-German War had a special significance for

me on other grounds also. For the first time, and as yet only in quite
a vague way, the question began to present itself: Is there a
difference—and if there be, what is it—between the Germans who
fought that war, and the other Germans?

Why did not Austria also take part in it? Why did not my father and
all the others fight in that struggle? Are we not the same as the
other Germans? Do we not all belong together?

That was the fiat time that this problem began to agitate my small
brain, and from the replies that were given to the questions which I
asked very tentatively, I was forced to accept the fact, though with a
secret envy, that not all Germans had the good luck to belong to
Bismarck’s Reich. This was something that I could not understand.

It was decided that I should study. Considering my character as a

whole, and especially my temperament, my father decided that the
classical subjects studied at the Gymnasium were not suited to my
natural talents, lie thought that the Realschule would suit me better.

My obvious talent for drawing confirmed him in that view, for in his
opinion, drawing was a subject too much neglected in the Austrian
Gymnasium. Probably also the memory of the hard road which he
himself had travelled contributed to make him look upon classical
studies as unpractical and accordingly to set little value on them.

At the back of his mind he had the idea that his son should also
become a government official. Indeed he had decided on that career
for me. The difficulties with which he had had to contend in making
his own career led him to overestimate what he had achieved,
because this was exclusively the result of his own indefatigable
industry and energy.
The characteristic pride of the self-made man caused him to cherish
the idea that his son should follow the same calling and if possible
rise to a higher position in it. Moreover, this idea was strengthened
by the consideration that the results of his own life’s industry had
placed him in a position to facilitate his son’s advancement in the
same profession.

He was simply incapable of imagining that I might reject what had

meant everything in life to him. My father’s decision was simple,
definite, clear and in his eyes, it was something to be taken for
granted.

A man of such a nature who had become an autocrat by reason of

his own hard struggle for existence, could not think of allowing
‘inexperienced’

and irresponsible young people to choose their own careers.

To act in such a way, where the future of his own son was
concerned, would have been a grave and reprehensible weakness in
the exercise ‘of parental authority and responsibility, something
utterly incompatible with his characteristic sense of duty.’ Still, he did
not have his way.

For the first time in my life (I was then eleven years old) I felt myself
forced into open opposition. No matter how hard and determined my
father might be about putting his own plans and opinions into effect,
his son was no less obstinate in refusing to accept ideas on which he
set little or no value. I would not become a civil servant.

No amount of persuasion and no amount of ‘grave’ warnings could

break down that opposition. I would not become a government
official, not on any account.

All the attempts which my father made to arouse in me a love or

liking for that profession, by picturing his own career for me, had
only the opposite effect. It nauseated me to think that one day I
might be fettered to an office stool, that I could not dispose of my
own time, but would be forced to spend the whole of my life filling
out forms.

One can imagine what kind of thoughts such a prospect awakened in

the mind of a boy who was by no means what is called a ‘good boy’
in the current sense of that term. The ease with which I learned my
lessons made it possible for me to spend, far more time in the open
air than at home.

To-day, when my political opponents pry into my life, as far back as

the days of my boyhood, with diligent scrutiny so as finally to be
able to prove what disreputable tricks this Hitler was, accustomed to
play in his young day, I thank Heaven that I can look back on those
happy days and find the memory of them helpful.

The fields and the woods were then the terrain on which all disputes
were fought out. Even attendance at the Realschule could not alter
my way of spending my time. But I had now another battle to fight.

So long as the paternal plan to make me a state functionary

contradicted my own inclinations only in the abstract, the conflict
was easy to bear. I could be discreet about expressing my person it
views and thus avoid constantly recurrent disputes.

My own resolution not to become a government official was

sufficient for the time being to put my mind completely at rest. I
held on to that resolution inexorably.

But the situation became more difficult once I had a positive plan of
my own which I could present to my father as a counter-suggestion.
This happened when I was twelve years old. How it came about I
cannot exactly say now, but one day it became clear to me that I
wanted to be a painter—I mean an artist.

That I had an aptitude for drawing was an admitted fact. It was

even one of the reasons why my father had sent me to the
Realschule; but he had never thought of having that talent
developed so that I could take up painting as a professional career.
Quite the contrary.

When, as a result of my renewed refusal to comply with his favourite

plan, my father asked me for the first time what I myself really
wished to be, the resolution that I had already formed expressed
itself almost automatically.

For a while my father was speechless.

“A painter? An artist?” he exclaimed.

He wondered whether I was in a sound state of mind. He thought

that he might not have caught my words rightly, or that he had
misunderstood what I meant, but when I had explained my ideas to
him and he saw how seriously I took them, he opposed them with
his characteristic energy. His decision was exceedingly simple and
could not be deflected from its course by any consideration of what
my own natural qualifications really were.

“Artist! Not as long as I live, never.” As the son had inherited some
of the father’s obstinacy, along with other qualities, his reply was
equally energetic, but, of course, opposed to his, and so the matter
stood. My father would not abandon his ‘Never,’ and I became all the
more determined in my ‘Nevertheless.’

Naturally the resulting situation was not pleasant. The old gentleman
was embittered and indeed so was I, although I really loved him. My
father forbade me to entertain any hopes of taking up painting as a
profession. I went a step further and declared that I would not study
anything else. With such declarations the situation became still more
strained, so that the old gentleman decided to assert his parental
authority at all costs.

This led me to take refuge in silence, but I put my threat into

execution. I thought that, once it became clear to my father that I
was making no progress at the Realschule, he would be forced to
allow me to follow the career I had dreamed of.

I do not know whether I calculated rightly or not. Certainly my

failure to make progress became apparent in the school. I studied
just those subjects that appealed to me, especially those which I
thought might be of advantage to me later on as a painter. What did
not appear to have any importance from this point of view, or what
did not otherwise appeal to me, I completely neglected.

My school reports of that time were always in the extremes of good

or bad, according to the subject and the interest it had for me. In
one column the remark was ‘very good’ or ‘excellent, in another
‘average’ or even ‘below average.’ By far my best subjects were
geography and general history. These were my two favourite
subjects, and I was top of the class in them.

When I look back over so many years and try to judge the results of
that experience I find two very significant facts standing out clearly
before my mind. Firstly, I became a nationalist. Secondly, I learned
to understand and grasp the true meaning of history.

The old Austria was a multi-national State. In those days at least,

the citizens of the German Reich, taken all in all, could not
understand what that fact meant in the everyday life of the
individuals within such a State.

After the magnificent triumphant march of the victorious armies in

the Franco-German War the Germans in the Reich became steadily
more and more estranged from the Germans beyond their frontiers,
partly because they did not deign to appreciate those other Germans
at their, true value or simply because they were incapable of doing
so. In thinking of Austria, they were prone to confuse the decadent
dynasty and the people which was essentially very sound.

The Germans in the Reich did not realise that if the Germans in
Austria had not been of the best racial stock they could never have
given the stamp of their own character to an Empire of fifty-two
millions, so definitely that in Germany itself the idea arose—though
quite erroneously—that Austria was a German State.

That was an error which had dire consequences; but all the same it
was a magnificent testimony to the character of the ten million
Germans in the Ostmark. Only very few Germans in the Reich itself
had an idea of the bitter struggle which those Eastern Germans had
to carry on daily for the preservation of their German language, their
German schools and their German character.

Only to-day, when a tragic fate has wrested several millions of our
kinsfolk from the Reich and has forced them to live under the rule of
the stranger, dreaming of that common fatherland towards which all
their yearnings are directed and struggling to uphold at least the
sacred right of using their mother tongue—only now have the wider
circles of the German population come to realise what it means to
have to fight for the traditions of one’s race.

So at last, perhaps there are people here and there who can assess
the greatness of that German spirit which animated the old Ostmark
and enabled those people, left entirely dependent on their own
resources, to defend the Reich against the Orient for several
centuries and subsequently to hold the frontiers of the German
language by means of a guerilla warfare of attrition, at a time when
the German Reich was sedulously cultivating an interest in colonies
but not in its own flesh and blood at its very threshold.

What has happened always and everywhere, in every kind of

struggle, happened also in the language fight which was carried on
in the old Austria.

There were three groups the fighters, those who were luke-warm,
and the traitors.

This sifting process began even in the schools and it is worth noting
that the struggle for the language was waged perhaps in its bitterest
form around the school, because this was the nursery where the
seeds had to be tended which were to spring up and form the future
generation.

The tactical objective of the fight was the winning over of the child,
and it was to the child that the first rallying cry was addressed,
“German boy, do not forget that you are a German,” and
“Remember, little girl, that one day you must be a German mother.”

Those who know something of the juvenile spirit can understand

how youth will always lend a ready ear to such a rallying cry. In
many ways the young people led the struggle, fighting in their own
manner and with their own weapons. They refused to sing non-
German songs.

The greater the efforts made to win them away from their German
allegiance, the more they exalted the glory of their German heroes.
They stinted themselves in buying sweetmeats, so that they might
spare their pennies to help the war fund of their elders.

They were incredibly alert to the significance of what the non-

German teachers said and they contradicted in unison. They wore
the forbidden emblems of their own nation and were happy when
penalized, or even physically punished. In their own way, they
faithfully mirrored their elders, and often their attitude was finer and
more sincere.

Thus it was that at a comparatively early age I took part in the

struggle which the nationalities were waging against one another in
the old Austria.

When collections were made for the youth Mark German League and
the School League we wore cornflowers and black-red-gold colours
to express our loyalty. We greeted one another with Heil! and
instead of the Austrian anthem we sang our own Deutschland uber
Alles, despite warnings and penalties.
Thus the youth was being educated politically, at a time when the
citizens of a socalled national State for the most part knew little of
their own nationality except the language.

Of course, I did not belong to the luke-warm section. Within a little

while I had become an ardent ‘German National,’ which had a
different meaning from the party significance attached to that term
to-day.

I developed very rapidly in the nationalist direction, and by the time

I was fifteen years old, I had come to understand the distinction
between dynastic patriotism and völkisch nationalism, my
sympathies being entirely in favour of the latter even in those days.

Such a preference may not perhaps be clearly intelligible to those

who have never taken the trouble to study the internal conditions
that prevailed in Austria under the Habsburg monarchy.

In Austria it was world-history as taught in schools that served to

sow the seeds of this development, for Austrian history, as such, is
practically non-existent.

The fate of this State was closely bound up with the existence and
development of Germany as a whole, so that a division of history
into German history and Austrian history is practically inconceivable.
And indeed it was only when the German people came to be divided
between two States that this division began to make German history.

The insignia of a former imperial sovereignty which were still

preserved in Vienna appeared to act as a magic guarantee of an
everlasting bond of union.

When the Habsburg State crumbled to pieces in 1918 the Austrian

Germans instinctively raised an outcry for union with their German
mother-country. That was the voice of unanimous yearning in the
hearts of the whole people for a return to the unforgotten home of
their fathers.
But such a general yearning could not be explained except by the
historical training through which the individual Austrian Germans had
passed.

It was a spring that never dried up. Especially in times of distraction

and forgetfulness its quiet voice was a reminder of the past, bidding
the people to look beyond the mere well-being of the moment to a
new future.

The teaching of universal history in what are called the higher grade
schools is still very unsatisfactory.

Few teachers realise that the purpose of teaching history is not the
memorizing of some dates and facts, that it does not matter whether
a boy knows the exact date of a battle or the birthday of some
marshal or other, nor when the crown of his fathers was placed on
the brow of some insignificant monarch. That is not what matters.

To study history means to search for and discover the forces that are
the causes of those results which appear before our eyes as
historical events. The art of reading and studying consists in
remembering the essentials and forgetting what is inessential.

Probably my whole future life was determined by the fact that I had
a teacher of history who understood, as few others understand, how
to make this viewpoint prevail in teaching and in examining. This
teacher was Dr. Leopold Poetsch, of the Realschule at Linz. He was
the ideal personification of the qualities necessary to a teacher of
history in the sense I have mentioned above.

An elderly gentleman with a decisive manner but a kindly heart, he

was a very attractive speaker and, was able to inspire us with his
own enthusiasm.

Even to-day I cannot recall without emotion that venerable

personality whose enthusiastic exposition of history so often made
us entirely forget the present and allow ourselves to be transported
as if by magic into the past.

He penetrated through the dim mist of thousands of years and

transformed the historical memory of the dead, past into a living

reality. When we listened to him we became afire with enthusiasm
and we were sometimes moved even to tears.

It was still more fortunate that this master was able not only to
illustrate the past by examples from the present, but from the past,
he was also able to draw a lesson for the present.

He understood better than any other the everyday problems that

were then agitating our minds. The national fervour which we fell in
our own small way was utilised by him as an instrument of our
education, inasmuch as he often appealed to our national sense of
honour, for in that way he maintained order and held our attention
much more easily than he could have done by any other means. It
was because I had such a master that history became my favourite
subject. As a natural consequence, but without the conscious
connivance of my teacher, I then and there became a young rebel.

But who could have studied German history under such a teacher
and not become an enemy of that State whose rulers exercised
such, a disastrous influence on the destinies of the German nation?

Finally, how could one remain a faithful subject of the House of

Habsburg, whose past history and present conduct proved it to be
ready, ever and always, to betray the interests of the German people
for the sake of paltry personal interests? Did not we, as youngsters,
fully realise that the House of Habsburg did not, and could not, have
any love for us Germans?

What history taught us about the policy followed by the House of

Habsburg was corroborated by our own everyday experiences. In
the north and in the south the poison of foreign races was eating
into the body of our people, and even Vienna was steadily becoming
more and more a non-German city.

The ‘Imperial House’ favoured the Czechs on every possible

occasion.

Indeed, it was the hand of the goddess of eternal justice and

inexorable retribution that caused the most deadly enemy of
Germanism in Austria, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to fall by the
very bullets which he himself had helped to cast. He was the prime
mover in the work, begun by the ruling classes, of turning Austria
into a Slav State.

The burdens laid on the shoulders of the German people were

enormous and the sacrifices of money and blood which they had to
make were incredibly heavy. Yet anybody who was not quite blind
must have seen that it was all in vain.

What affected us most bitterly was the consciousness of the fact that
this whole system was morally sanctioned by the alliance with
Germany, whereby the slow extirpation of Germanism in the old
Austrian Monarchy seemed in some way to be more or less
countenanced by Germany herself.

Habsburg hypocrisy, which endeavoured outwardly to make the

people believe that Austria still remained a German State, increased
the feeling of hatred against the Imperial House and at the same
time aroused a spirit of rebellion and contempt.

Only in the German Reich itself did those who were then its rulers
fail to understand what all this meant. As if struck blind, they stood
beside a corpse and in the very symptoms of decomposition they
believed that they recognised the signs of renewed vitality. In that
unhappy alliance between the young German Empire and the illusory
Austrian State lay the germ of the World War and also of the final
collapse.
In subsequent passages of this book I shall go to the root of this
problem.

Suffice it here to say that in the very early years of my youth I came
to certain conclusions which I have never abandoned, Indeed I
became more profoundly convinced of them as the years passed.

They were, firstly, that the dissolution of the Austrian Empire was a
preliminary condition for the safeguarding of German nationality and
culture; further, that national feeling is by no means identical with
dynastic patriotism; and, above all, that the House of Habsburg was
destined to bring misfortune on the German nation. As a logical
consequence of these convictions, there arose in me a feeling of
intense love for my German-Austrian home and a profound hatred
for the Austrian State.

The way of looking at history which was developed in me through

my study of history at school never left me afterwards. World-history
became more and more an inexhaustible source for the
understanding of contemporary historical events, which means
politics. Therefore, I would not ‘learn’ history, but let history teach
me.

A precocious revolutionary in politics, I was no less a precocious

revolutionary in art. At that time, the provincial capital of Upper
Austria had a theatre which, relatively speaking, was not bad.
Almost everything was produced there.

When I was twelve years old I saw a performance of Wilhelm Tell

there.

That was my first experience of the theatre. Some months later I

attended a performance of Lohengrin, the first opera I had ever
heard. I was fascinated at once.

My youthful enthusiasm for the Bayreuth Master knew no bounds.

Again and again I was drawn to hear his operas; and to-day I
consider it a great piece of luck that these modest productions in the
little provincial city prepared the way and made it possible for me to
appreciate better productions later on.

All this helped to intensify my profound aversion for the career that
my father had chosen for me, and this dislike became especially
strong as the rough corners of youthful boorishness were worn
down, a process which, in my case, was fraught with a good deal of
pain.

I became more and more convinced that I should never be happy as

a government official, and now that the Realschule had recognised
and acknowledged my aptitude for drawing, my own resolution
became all the stronger.

Imprecations and threats had no longer any power to change it. I

wanted to become a painter and no power on earth could force me
to become a civil servant. The only peculiar feature of, the situation
now was that as I grew bigger I became more and more interested
in architecture.

I considered this fact as a natural complement of my talent for

painting and I rejoiced inwardly that the sphere of my artistic
interests was thus enlarged. I had no notion that one day it would
have to be otherwise.

The question of my career was decided much sooner than I could

have foreseen. When I was in my thirteenth year my father was
suddenly taken from us. He was still in robust health when a stroke
of apoplexy painlessly ended his earthly sojourn and left us all
deeply bereaved.

His most ardent longing was to be able to help his son to advance in
a career and thus save him from the harsh ordeal that he himself
had had to undergo, but it appeared then as if that longing were in
vain. And yet, though he himself was not conscious of it, he had
sown the seeds of a future which neither of us foresaw at that time.
At first nothing was changed outwardly. My mother felt it her duty to
continue my education in accordance with my father’s wishes, which
meant that she would have me study for the civil service. For my
own part, I was even more firmly determined than ever before that
in no circumstances would I become a government official.

The curriculum and teaching methods followed in the higher grade

school were so far removed from my ideals that I became profoundly
indifferent. Illness suddenly came to my assistance. Within a few
weeks it decided my future and put an end to the long-standing
family conflict.

My lungs became so seriously affected that the doctor advised my

mother very strongly not in any circumstances to allow me to take
up a career which would necessitate working in an office. He
ordered that I should give up attending the Realschule, for a year at
least.

What I had secretly desired for such a long time, and had
persistently fought for, now suddenly became reality without effort
on my part. Influenced by my illness, my mother agreed that I
should leave the Realschule and attend the Academy.

Those were happy days, which appeared to me almost like a dream;

and they were doomed to remain only a dream. Two years later my
mother’s death put a brutal end to all my fine projects. She
succumbed to a long and painful illness which, from the very
beginning, permitted little hope of recovery.

Though expected, her death came as a terrible blow to me. I

respected my father, but I loved my mother.

Poverty and stern reality forced me to decide promptly. The meagre

resources of the family had been almost entirely used up through my
mother’s severe illness. The allowance which came to me as an
orphan was not enough for the bare necessities of life.
Somehow or other, I would have to earn my own bread. With my
clothes and linen packed in a valise and with an indomitable
resolution in my heart, I left for Vienna. I hoped to forestall Fate, as
my father had done fifty years before, I was determined to become
‘somebody’ but certainly not a civil servant.

CHAPTER II: LEARNING AND SUFFERING IN

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 “That’s no good here and you know it’s no good,” said the officer.
“Wainboro! And a year old too. Why didn’t you come and get your
permit when you got to town? You’ve been in this game long enough
to know you’ve got to do that. All these concessions have permits,
except those under carnival management.”
“Some towns—” began McDennison.
“Never mind about some towns. You know you’ve got to get a
permit in this town. Why didn’t you do it?”
The harassed performer began again, “You guys⸺”
“Never mind about that now,” said the officer. “I was sent here to
see your permit and to bring you down to the office if you didn’t have
it. You know all about it; you were at the Elks’ Fair three years ago.
You better come along and get your permit, Charlie. You’ll have to
take care of a fine, too.”
“You don’t mean now?” the diving wonder asked. “Ain’t you going
to leave me do my trick? I go on in about five minutes. You fellers
sure got the knife in us. If I belonged in this here town⸺”
“Come on, McDennison,” said the officer in a way of quiet finality.
“You know the game as well as I do. We’re not interested in your
trick, only your permit. Come on, get your duds on. I guess you’ve
been through all this before. Come on, speed up.”
Diving Denniver cast his cigarette from him, bestowing a look of
unutterable contempt on the officer. In that sneering scorn he
seemed to include the whole of Farrelton and all constituted
authorities the world over. And Hervey joined him in his contempt
and loathing. Diving Denniver had been through all that before. He
knew the permit towns and the non-permit towns and the towns
where a “tip” would save him the expense of a permit. Hervey had
not dreamed that this enchanted creature ever had to do anything
but dive, he did not know that the wonder of two continents had hit
Farrelton penniless.
I will not recount the language used by Diving Denniver as he
pulled on a shabby suit of clothes and threw a funny little derby hat
on the back of his head. How prosaic and odd he looked! But his
language was not prosaic; it was quite as spectacular as his famous
exploit—his trick, as he called it. Poor McDennison, it was all he had
to sell—his trick. And sometimes he had so much trouble about it.
A funny little figure he made trotting excitedly along with the
officer, his derby hat on the back of his head bespeaking haste and
anger. He smoked a cigarette and talked volubly and swore as he
hurried away, leaving Hervey staring aghast.
Such a troublesome and distracting thing it is to be a wonder of
two continents.
 CHAPTER XXIX
THE WHITE LIGHT
Well at all events, Hervey might now inspect freely the sanctum of
the diving wonder. His enthusiasm for the hero was not dimmed.
Even the derby hat had not entirely covered up Diving Denniver.
Here was just another exhibition authority. That a cop should make
so free with Diving Denniver, even calling him Charlie!
Hervey went into the tent, and stood looking about. Muffled by the
distance he could hear the frightful monotonous music of the merry-
go-round playing Little Annie Rooney for the millionth time. On the
red board were strewn the leavings of Diving Denniver’s supper. The
smutty little oil-stove reeked of kerosene. A long, up-ended box did
duty as a washstand and on this, beside a tin basin, was the
photograph of a girl. A couple of candles burned and sputtered. On
the tent pole hung a broken mirror.
Diving Denniver’s bathrobe and his white bathing suit trimmed
with gold braid lay on the converted couch just as he had thrown
them in his hurry and anger. The very bathrobe, half off and half on
the couch, seemed eloquent of his high disgust at the tyrannical
interruption of his work. Hervey surmised that he would speak with
the management of the carnival on his way out; he wondered why
the two had not gone in that direction. But in truth the diving wonder
did not love his public enough to consider it in his sudden dilemma.
He never went up when the wind was strong. And he was not
thinking of the expectant throng now.
Hervey longed to don that gorgeous exhibition suit. Could he slip it
on in a hurry? With him it was but one step from impulse to action
and in a few seconds he had thrown off his suit and was gazing at
himself in the dirty old mirror, clad in the white and gold habiliments
of the international wonder. How tightly it fitted! How thrillingly
professional it made him feel! What a moment in his young life!
Suddenly, something very extraordinary happened. The trodden
grass at his feet shimmered with a pale brightness. Clearly he saw a
couple of cigarette butts in the grass. It was as if some one had
spilled this brightness on the ground. Then it was gone. And there
was only a dim light where the candles sputtered on the makeshift
table. That was a strange occurrence.
He stepped out of the tent and there was the patch of brightness
near the Ford sedan. How plainly he could read the flaunting words
on the spare tire, THREE HUNDRED FOOT DIVE. Then suddenly,
the square tank and the foot of the dizzy ladder were bathed in light.
A long, dusty column was poking around as if it had lost something.
The sedan was again illuminated. The bright patch moved under the
tent and painted an area of the canvas golden. Was it looking for
Diving Denniver, the wonder of two continents, to come forth and
make his three hundred foot dive?
It found the tank and the ladder again and made them glowing
and resplendent. Then there was wafted on the air the robust sound
of the band playing real music. It drowned the tin-pan whining of the
merry-go-round and sent its rousing strains over the fence which
bore the forbidding sign. What a martial tumult! It made the cane
ringers pause, sent the carriers of kewpie dolls to a point of vantage,
and left the five-legged calf forlorn and alone. Louder and louder it
sent forth its rousing melody.
Come take a ride o’er the clouds with me
Up in the air mid the stars.
Hervey Willetts stood petrified. He was in the hands of the gods—
or the devils. I have sometimes wondered if he ever, ever thought.
Behind every act, good or bad, there is some kind of intention. And I
have told you about boys whose intentions were not of the best. But
what of this boy? There was just never anything behind his acts. No
boy could catch him. Yet the band and the waiting light caught him.
And what did they do to him? The light seemed to be waiting for him,
there at the foot of the ladder. All else was darkness. Only the area
of brightness bathing the ladder and the big tank with its metal
corners. It seemed to say, “Come, I am going up with you.” And, God
help him, he went to it as a moth flies to a flame.
When he had ascended a few feet, he remembered that Diving
Denniver went up very slowly seeming to test each rung. He knew
now that this had been for effect and to make the climb seem long.
For the rungs were sound and strong. Also the performer had
occasionally extended his arm. The substitute realized that there had
been good reason for that, for the breeze was more brisk as he
ascended and he knew that the diver had thus held out his hand by
way of keeping tabs on the breeze.
The small tank permitted no divergence from the straight descent.
To land outside it⸺
He went up slowly, but did not pause at each rung. He could be
reckless, but not theatrical. But he did hold out his hand every few
feet and the gay breeze cooled his sweaty palm. Was the wind too
strong? What would Diving Denniver do? Go back? But in any case
Hervey could not do that. He never turned back.
He continued ascending, up, up, up. He could feel the ladder
sway a little. When he was about half-way up, the breeze made a
little murmur where it was cut by one of the wires extending off
slantingways, far off down to the earth somewhere. It was funny how
he could see these wires in the circle of light that had accompanied
him in his long climb, but could not follow them with his eyes to their
distant anchorages. Each wire disappeared in the darkness, and he
had an odd fear that they did not go anywhere. He saw the lights of
the carnival, but no human beings. Were they gazing at him—
hundreds of upturned faces?
Up, up, up he went. Was there no end to it? Now he did really feel
the force of the breeze. Was it too strong? How could he decide
that? He could hear the band, but he knew it would cease playing
when he reached the top. In that one brief moment of suspense it
would cease playing. His companion light moved with him like a
good pal. And beyond and below all was darkness except for the
lights of the carnival.
Up, up, up he climbed. And he came at last to the little platform at
the top, as big as the top of a stepladder. It was just a little shelf fixed
to the fifth or sixth rung from the top. But the part of the ladder above
that would serve as a back and he could lean against it. By fancying
the ground was right below him, by eliminating the distance from his
mind, he was able to squirm around and get onto this tiny shelf. He
did not know how Diving Denniver did this, but he managed it.
Standing on the little shelf and leaning back, he could feel the
ladder shake under him. Of course, there were several ladders
clamped together and the extending wires could not hold the
towering structure absolutely taut. But it was steady at the top.
Far below him was a square frame of lights marking the sides of
the tank which had been illuminated during his ascent. Within it the
water shimmered. His senses swam and he closed his eyes, then
opened them and got control of himself. A straight down dive would
do it. Would it? Yes, he was sure. He let go the ladder and laid his
two hands palm to palm above his head.
There was no music now.
HERVEY MADE THE GREAT DIVE.
 CHAPTER XXX
STUNT OR SERVICE
The next thing he knew he was lying propped up against a tree
and people were crowding about him. He knew this was not in tribute
to him for he heard a voice say, “Some crazy little fool, all right.”
“Did you ’phone?” he heard some one ask.
“Yes, he’ll be here soon.”
“He isn’t the regular one, is he?” another asked.
“Don’t ask me,” another answered; “I just followed the crowd.”
All the while a boy in a scout suit was moving his hand around
near Hervey’s foot. Emerging from his stunned condition, Hervey
had an odd impression that this boy was stirring something in a bowl.
Far off was the monotonous, incessant music of the merry-go-round.
Then, as Hervey blinked his eyes and brushed his soaking hair back
with a wet hand it seemed as if this boy were playing the music, for
his hand moved in time with that muffled clamor. Hervey lapsed off
into unconcern again and closed his eyes. It was only giddiness.
When he opened them again, he watched the boy with a kind of
detached curiosity. He felt a tightening sensation in his leg. Then he
realized that the boy had been drawing a bandage tighter and tighter
around his calf by revolving a stick. Still Hervey was only vaguely
interested.
“Stopped?” some one asked.
“Yep,” said the boy. He sat at Hervey’s feet with hands clasped
around his drawn-up knees. Soon he arose and stood looking as if to
ascertain on his own account if some one were coming.
“Who are you looking for?” Hervey asked weakly.
“The doctor,” answered the boy. He was a tall boy. As he stood
looking, he kicked something with his foot.
“What’s that?” Hervey asked.
 The boy picked it up and dangled it in front of him, laughing. It was
just about recognizable as the body of a kewpie doll, and it was a
ghastly sight, for the head hung loose and the body was mangled
and out of shape. “Glad you’re not as bad off as that, hey?” said the
scout. “I won that blamed thing ringing canes and I got—I bet I got
three yards of cloth off it; there goes.” And twirling it cruelly by one
leg, he hurled it gayly over the heads of the throng.
“You people get away from here, go on,” said the robust voice of a
policeman. “Go on, all of yer, get away from here; he ain’t hurt much.
Go on, chase yourselves, you kids.”
“He can’t chase me anyway,” said Hervey.
“That’s a good one,” laughed the boy. “Nor me either; I’m the
surgeon general or whatever you call it.”
“You can’t chase me,” said Hervey to the policeman. “That’s
where I’ve got the laugh on you.”
“If I was your father, I’d chase you to the padded cell,” the
policeman commented, then busied himself clearing away the
loiterers.
The scout examined his twisted bandage and gave it one more
twist. Then he sat down on the ground beside Hervey. Two or three
men and the policeman lingered about, but did not bother these two.
“That was some crazy stunt all right,” said the scout.
“Did I—where did I fall?” Hervey asked.
“You went in the tank, but only just, I guess. Your foot must have
knocked the edge; four of the electric bulbs were broken. I don’t think
there’s any glass in your foot; anyway, I stopped it bleeding. Gee,
boy, I did murder that kewpie doll! How the dickens did you happen
to do that, anyway?” Hervey told him briefly.
“Good night, some daredevil! I dived to-day, but I had the whole
river to dive in. Me for that tank stuff—not.”
“Are you a scout in this town?” Hervey asked. “Yep, South
Farrelton. I was here last night and I had my fortune told and the old
woman told me I’d be lucky. I was all right. And believe me, so were
you.”
“How were you lucky?” Hervey asked.
 “Oh, things came my way. I’m here with my patrol to-night; I guess
the cop chased them—good thing. They’d have trampled all over
you.”
“They’re always chasing people,” Hervey said. “They came and
got that diving wonder even, they’re so blamed fresh. And he’s a
wonder of two continents. Anyway, I’m always lucky.”
“I’ll say you are!”
“I’m going out to Montana, maybe to South America. I bet you can
do what you want down there. They weave Panama hats under the
water; gee, I bet I could do that. I always land right side up, that’s
one thing about me.”
“It’s a darned good thing,” said the scout.
Hervey did not bother to ask him his name, but the boy told him; it
was Wyne Corson. “That’s a good first name, hey?” he said. “Wyne?
It’s better than lose. There’s a scout in our troop named Luze—they
call us Win and Lose. He’s a Hungarian on his great granddaughter’s
side, I guess. Here comes the crowd back; I guess the doctor’s
coming.”
The doctor came and kneeled down, brisk, smiling and efficient.
He seemed not to take any interest in the spectacular exploit, only in
the injured foot. “Well, I guess you’re all right,” he said after treating
and bandaging the foot. “You won’t be able to run any marathon
races to-morrow.”
“Can I the next day?” Hervey asked.
“No, you can’t the next day,” the doctor laughed. “Who’s going to
take you home?”
Then he offered to do it himself and Wyne Corson got the hero’s
brown shirt and knickerbockers from the tent and maneuvered him
into them. He even placed the treasured hat on his head at an
unconventional angle. He seemed to have an inspired appreciation
of Hervey’s bizarre character. Then they helped him to the waiting
car. Gaping stragglers watched the self-appointed understudy of the
diving wonder as he limped between the doctor and the scout, past
the enclosure of the five-legged calf, and around the festooned
platform where the merry dance was on. Whirling couples paused to
stare at him and one girl ran out and boldly inspected the celebrity
from head to foot. “Oh, he has the brightest eyes,” she confided to
her waiting partner, “and the funniest little hat with all sorts of buttons
on it. Do you know who he reminds me of? Peter Pan.”
At the doctor’s car half a dozen scouts stood about gazing at
Hervey. They hardly knew what to make of him, but they had a kind
of instinctive respect for him and showed it. I am not sure that this
was just on account of his daredevil exploit. There was something
about him and that’s all there is to it. Good or bad, he was different.
“Did I do the right thing?” Wyne Corson ventured to ask the
doctor. He had hoped he might be asked to accompany Hervey, but
apparently this was not to be.
“Oh yes indeed—the only thing,” said the doctor. “You were on the
job and efficient and clever. That’s the kind of thing I like to see.”
“You ought to have seen what he did,” Wyne ventured. Was he
falling for this cracked-brained youngster too?
“I don’t believe I’d care to see that,” said the doctor with brisk
good-humor.
And there stood Wyne Corson with his scout comrades about him.
They did not comment upon his efficiency nor the doctor’s ready
compliment.
“Did he talk to you? What did he say?” asked one.
“Where does he live?” asked another.
“Is he friendly, sort of?” asked a third.
“For the love of Christopher, why didn’t you talk to him
yourselves?” laughed Wyne. “He wouldn’t eat you up. Come on, I’m
going to treat to ice cream again, then let’s go home.”
 CHAPTER XXXI
HOPELESS
He sat in a big old-fashioned chair in the living room with his
injured foot upon a stool, in deference to the powers that be. There
was a knock on the front door and presently young Mr. Ebin Talbot,
scoutmaster, poked his head around the casing of the living room in
a way of mock temerity.
“May I come in and have a look at the wonder of wonders?” he
asked. “How are we; getting better?”
“It hurts a little when I stand on it.”
“Then the best thing is not to stand on it, hey? Like the advice to a
young man about to stand on his head on a steeple—Don’t. Good
advice, huh? Well Herve, old boy, I’ve got you where I want you at
last; your foot’s hurt and you can’t get away from me. Did you ever
hear the story about the donkey that kicked the lion? Only the lion
was dead. Well, I’m the donkey and you’re the lion; I’ve got you
where you can’t jump down my neck. Do you know that was a crazy
thing you did, Herve? You just put yourself in my power. Maybe you
did it so you wouldn’t have to go to school, huh? Where’s your dad?”
“He’s at the store.”
“Have you heard about this conspiracy to send you to military
school?” Poor man, he was trying to reach Hervey by the good pal
method. He drew his chair close and spoke most confidentially. “I
think we can beat it,” he said.
“Leave it to me,” said Hervey.
“You’re not worrying?”
“I’d be there about three days,” said Hervey.
“I think you’d be there about three years, my boy.”
“What do you bet? Everybody’s calling me a crazy daredevil. Do
you think I wouldn’t be enough of a daredevil to get away from a
military school? Bimbo, that’s a cinch.”
It seemed to be something that Hervey was quite looking forward
to; a lure to new adventure. Mr. Talbot went on another tack.
“Well, I thought if we could slip you into the Scouts in time, we
could beat your dad to it.”
“I’ll beat them all to it, all right,” said Hervey vaguely. “They
arrested that wonder—even of two continents he’s a wonder—but I
gave them a good run. I nearly bit that feller’s hand off when he
grabbed me. Do you dare me that I won’t get away from military
school?”
“Oh goodness no, but listen, Herve.” He became soft and serious.
“You can listen, can’t you? You haven’t got anything else to do—now.
You know that boy who put the jigamerig around your leg?”
“Carter—something like that?”
“You don’t remember his name, Herve? Wyne Corson. That fellow
is in the troop they’ve got down in the south end; they’ve got quite an
outfit. One of them—he’s just a kid—wants to have a hat like yours.
When you jumped, you jumped right into the hearts of the Raccoon
Patrol; you didn’t hit the tank at all. Well, that fellow was—now listen,
here’s a knockout for you. Do you know how those fellows happened
to be at the carnival last night?”
“Do you think I bother ringing canes?” said Hervey.
“Well, it’s good he won a kewpie doll, now isn’t it? But that’s not
the knockout. He won a prize yesterday and he was giving his patrol
a kind of a blowout last night at the carnival. I think there’s going to
be a shortage of pop-corn for the next forty-’leven years.”
“Well, yesterday morning he was up the river with that scout—that
little stocky fellow; did you notice him?”
“No.”
“Well, he noticed you. They were up on Blackberry Cliff; as near
as I can make out they’re always out for eats. There was a girl in a
canoe down below; she belongs in that white house right across
from the cliff. What I’m telling you is in this afternoon’s paper—you
can see it. Well sir, the canoe upset, and this Wyne, he dived from
the Cliff—that’s pretty high, you know, Herve, and he got her and
swam to shore with her—now wait. Here’s the punch. He gets the
Ellen C. Bentley reward for this year. You remember nobody got it
last year. He goes on a trip to California next summer—six weeks.
Naturally he was feeling pretty good last night. And he never told you
a word about it! Think of those two things that scout did yesterday!
Dived from a cliff and saved a life, won a trip across the continent,
then put a what-d’ye-call-it around your leg when you might have
bled to death after making a crazy dive that didn’t get you anything—
not one blessed thing.”
“Do you think I didn’t have any fun?”
“Hervey, boy, why did you do it? Why—why did you do it? A crazy
fool thing like that!” Hervey was silent, a trifle abashed by the
seriousness and vehemence of his visitor.
“Why did you do it?”
“I—I couldn’t help it.”
Young Ebin Talbot just looked at him as a wrestler might look,
trying to decide where to take his adversary. “I guess so,” he said
low and resignedly.
But he was not to be beaten so easily. “Hervey, there are only two
boys in this town who could do what Wyne Corson did, and he is one
of them and you’re the other one. Why are you never in the right
place at the right time?”
Hervey flared up, “Do you mean to tell me I don’t know any one
who could do that—what Wyne Corson did? Do you bet me I don’t?”
“Oh, for goodness’ sakes, Hervey! You did a hair-brained thing, a
big stunt if you will; and Corson did a heroic act. And here you are
making bets with me about something of no importance. What’s the
matter with you? Why I was paying you a compliment!”
“You said I don’t know anybody who could swim out like that. Do
you say I can’t—do you dare me⸺”
Young Mr. Talbot held up his hand impatiently. Hervey not only
never did the right thing, but he even couldn’t talk about the right
thing. Like many men who are genial in hope, he was impatient in
failure. He had not Mr. Walton’s tolerant squint.
“Please don’t dare me, Hervey. Dares and stunts never get a boy
anywhere.”
 “How do you know how many fellers can do a thing?” Hervey
demanded.
“Well, all right then, Hervey, I don’t,” said Mr. Talbot rising. “But let
me just say this to you. I know you could do what Corson did
yesterday and it was a glorious thing, and brings him high reward.
Also, if it’s any satisfaction for you to know it, I believe you could find
a way of escaping from a military school. You see, I give you full
credit. I think there is hardly a single thing that you could not do—
except to do something with a fine purpose. Just to stand on your
head isn’t enough; do you see? The first time you do a brave,
reckless thing for service you’ll be the finest scout that ever lived.
None of them can touch you on action, but action means nothing
without motive. It’s just like a car jacked up and the wheels going
round; it never gets anywhere.”
“Didn’t I do a service to Diving Denniver?” Hervey demanded.
“Well, did you? Honor bright; did you? Did you want to help him?
Was that the idea? Come on now, Hervey. Fair and square, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“You did it because⸺”
“Didn’t I tell you it was because I couldn’t help it?” said Hervey
angrily.
 CHAPTER XXXII
UPS AND DOWNS
Young Mr. Talbot gave Hervey up. I think he lost patience too
readily. As for Mr. Walton, he was past the stage of quiet argument
with his stepson. He was as firm in resolve as he was patient in
discussion. And never was Hervey more bent on action that was his
harassed guardian from the moment he was apprised of the carnival
escapade. Even gentle Mrs. Walton, who had pled after the satchel
episode, thought now that it was better for Hervey to go to military
school than to break his neck.
“Well, he won’t even break rules there,” said Mrs. Walton.
As for Hervey, he was not worrying about military school. He
never thought or worried about anything. He would meet every
situation as it came. He was not staggered by Wyne Corson’s
opportunity to go west. To give him credit, he was not selfish or
envious. He forgot all about Wyne Corson.
One matter he did bear in mind and it was the very essence of
absurdity. With his own narrow escape to ponder on, and Wyne
Corson’s splendid deed to thrill him (if he was capable of a thrill) he
must set off as soon as he was able to prove his all-important claim
that there was another individual capable of doing what Mr. Talbot
had said that only he and Corson could do. He accepted the young
scoutmaster’s declaration not as a compliment, but as a kind of dare.
That is how his mind worked and I am giving you just the plain facts.
I told you in the beginning that no one understood him.
But now he was to receive something as near to a shock as he
had ever received. He sought out Diving Denniver in his sanctum
and approached him rather sheepishly (for him) for he knew not how
his feat had impressed the wonder of two continents. It was the last
day of the carnival, the matter of the permit had been adjusted, and
Diving Denniver was that evening to dive for the last time in
Farrelton. On this occasion he wore his regular clothes and his little
derby hat was on the back of his head as he packed his trunk in
anticipation of departure.
“Hello,” said Hervey.
“Hello, yer gol blamed little fool.”
“Well, I did it, didn’t I?” said Hervey defensively.
“Sure you did it, but you were just lucky. You’re just a crazy kid,
that’s all. That there kid that’s got his name in the papers fer savin’ a
girl’s life, now he’s a regular guy, he is. If you want to jump why don’t
you get in the big parade, kid?” He folded some clothing and did not
pay much attention to Hervey as he talked. “If yer want ter pull the
big stuff why don’t yer get in with them guys. This here ain’t narthin’.”
“Do you know what a scoutmaster told me?” demanded Hervey,
somewhat aroused. “He said that only two fellers—me and that other
feller—could dive off that cliff and swim to shore with a girl. So as
long as you’re a friend of mine will you come and show him that you
can do it? Just to show him he’s not so smart. Then he’ll see you’re
a friend of mine, and he’ll see you can do it. Hey? So I can put it all
over him. Hey?”
“Naah, cut that stuff, kid. Why wuz yer thinkin’ I can swim and
save lives? I ain’t much on swimmin’, kid.” He reached over to where
Hervey sat dangling his legs from the makeshift table and good-
naturedly ruffled his hair. “Yer got me wrong, kid. What’s bitin’ yer
anyways? This here is a trick, that’s all it is. I know me little trick.
Why wouldn’ I? I been doin’ it fer seven years. There ain’t narthin’ to
it when yer once get it right. Did yer think this here wuz a kind of an
adventure like? Hand me them two saucers, will yer. Listen here, kid.
Here’s how it is. When yer know how ter do it there’ ain’t narthin’ to
it; see? An’ if yer try it when yer don’t know how, yer a blame fool. I
bet yer kin swim better’n what I can, at that. I jus’ do me turn, kid.
See?”
Hervey was staggered. “Ain’t you the wonder of two continents?”
he asked. “Don’t you say it yourself?”
“Sure thing, and I’m sorry I didn’t make it five continents when I
wuz printin’ it. What’s a couple of continents more or less? Pull that
there broken glass down and let’s have it, will yer? Yer don’t think yer
done narthin’ big do yer?” He paused and faced Hervey for just a
moment. “Dis here is just a trick, kid. Go on and join them kids
what’s doin’ the divin’. Come out o’ yer trance, little brother. You’ze
got the makin’s of a regular hop, skip and jumper, yer has. Wuz yer
old man sore at yer?”
Hervey felt as if the bottom had fallen out of the earth. Not that he
wanted praise and recognition; he never craved those. But what he
had done was just nothing at all. He was no more a hero than a man
who tried to commit suicide is a hero. And the wonder of two
continents was just a good-humored, tough little young man who
knew a trick! How brave and splendid seemed the exploit of Wyne
Corson now! That was not a trick.
“You beat it home now,” said McDennison, “and don’t go inter no
business what yer ain’t got the dope on. A kid like you oughter had
that trip ter the coast. Look at me, I ain’t got the carfare ter open up
in Bridgeburgh Fair.”
Hervey went away, not exactly heavy-hearted, for he was never
that. And not exactly thoughtful, for he certainly was never that. But
disgruntled. And even that was unusual with him. He might have had
that trip to the coast. Or at least on a dozen different occasions, he
might have won such a reward. But for all his fine bizarre deeds he
got just nothing; not even honor. And the pity of it was he could not
figure this out. He never remembered what anybody told him; he
never pondered. Yet I think that poor Diving Denniver did some
good; I think he almost reached him.
On the way home, he was saved from any of the perils of thought
by the allurements of action. Near the entrance to the carnival was a
basket full of booklets about Farrelton the Home Town. There was a
sign above this basket which read. Free—Take One. Hervey did not
take a booklet, but he took the sign. It was an oblong wooden sign
and had a hole in it to hang it up by. By inserting a stick in this hole,
he could twirl the sign around as he ambled homeward. He became
greatly preoccupied with this pastime and his concentration
continued till he reached the Aunt Maria Sweet Shoppe. Here were
bottles of honey and tempting jars of preserves standing on a display
shelf outside, and he coyly set the Free—Take One sign on these,
proceeding homeward with that air of innocence that he knew how to
affect.
Crossing the deserted Madden farm, he discovered a garter
snake. It was a harmless little snake, but it filled its destiny in
Hervey’s life. It was necessary for him to lift it on the end of his stick
and, before it wriggled off, send it flying through the broken window
of the Madden barn. This was not easy to do, because the snake
would not hold still. With each cast, however, it seemed to become
more drowsy, until finally it hung over the stick long enough for
Hervey to get a good aim and send the elongated missile flying
through the broken, cobweb-filled window.
The shot was so successful that Hervey could not refrain from
giving an encore. One good sling deserved another. So up he
vaulted to the sill of the old window, brushing ancient cobwebs out of
his eyes and hair, and down he went inside. But he went down
further than he had expected to, for the flooring was quite gone from
the old barn and he alighted all in a heap on a pile of dank straw in
the cellar.
Four unbroken walls of heavy masonry arose to a height of ten or
twelve feet. Far above him, through the shrunken, rotted shingles,
little glints of sunlight penetrated. A few punky boards strewn in this
stenchy dungeon gave evidence that the flooring above had rotted
away before being entirely removed. Perhaps there had been an
intention to lay a new flooring. But it was many years since the
Maddens had gone away and now there were rumors that the
extensive farm land was to become a bungalow colony.
As Hervey lifted one of the punky boards it broke in the middle
and fell almost in shreds at his feet. A number of little flat bugs,
uncovered in their damp abode, went scooting this way and that after
similar shelter. The snake too, recovered from the shock of being a
missile, wriggled off to some agreeable refuge amid the rotting litter
of that dank prison.
 CHAPTER XXXIII
STORM AND CALM
Hervey’s fortunes were never at a lower ebb than when he stood
in that damp cellar as the night came on and tried to reconcile
himself to sleeping on the straw. Even the morrow held only the hope
that by chance some one would discover him in his dreadful
dungeon. It was not until a rotten board, laid diagonally against the
foundation, had collapsed with him that he gave up and threw
himself down with a feeling as near to despair as his buoyant nature
had ever experienced.
Through the cracks and crevices of the shingles high overhead,
he watched the light die away. A ray from the declining sun streamed
through the window from which he had fallen, lingered for a few
moments, then withdrew leaving the place almost in darkness. Such
a price to pay for a merry little game with a snake!
Meanwhile, events occurred which were destined to have a
bearing on Hervey’s life. At about half past nine that night, young Mr.
Talbot emerged from the Walton house and encountered Wyne
Corson coming in through the gateway. They both laughed at the
encounter.
“Missionary work?” Mr. Talbot inquired.
“You beat me to it?” laughed Wyne.
“No, I’m through,” Mr. Talbot said. “He isn’t even home; nobody
knows where he is. No, I’m through working on that prospect, and I
wouldn’t waste my time if I were you, Corson. He’s going to military
school and I guess that’s the best place for him.”
“The fellows in my troop are crazy about him,” said Wyne.
“They might better be crazy about you,” Mr. Talbot answered. “If
they’re as crazy as all that, they’re better off without another crazy
fellow in their troop. Come on, walk along with me; there’s no one