1919 by John Dos Passos Page A

corporal.”
    â€œVery good, sir.” The corporal saluted, and they marched out.
    The breakfast was watery oatmeal, stale tea and two slices of bread with margarine on it. After it Joe felt hungrier than before. Still it was good to get out in the air, even if it was drizzling and the flagstones of the small courtyard where they put him were like ice to his bare feet under the thin slime of black mud that was over them.
    There was another prisoner in the courtyard, a little fatfaced man in a derby hat and a brown overcoat, who came up to Joe immediately. “Say, are you an American?”
    â€œSure,” said Joe.
    â€œMy name’s Zentner . . . buyer in restaurant furnishings . . . from Chicago. . . . This is the tamnest outrage. Here I come to this tamned country to buy their tamned goods, to spend good American dollars. . . . Three days ago yet I placed a ten tousand dollar order in
Sheffield. And they arrest me for a spy and I been here all night yet and only this morning vill they let me telephone the consulate. It is outrageous and I hafe a passport and visa all they vant. I can sue for this outrage. I shall take it to Vashington. I shall sue the British government for a hundred tousand dollars for defamation of character. Forty years an American citizen and my fader he came not from Chermany but from Poland. . . . And you, poor boy, I see that you haf no shoes. And they talk about the atrocious Chermans and if this ain’t an atrocity, vat is it?”
    Joe was shivering and running round the court at a jogtrot to try to keep warm. Mr. Zentner took off his brown coat and handed it to him.
    â€œHere, kid, you put that coat on.” “But, jeez, it’s too good; that’s damn nice of you.” “In adversity ve must help von anoder.”
    â€œDod gast it, if this is their spring, I hate to think what their winter’s like. . . . I’ll give the coat back to you when I go in. Jeez, my feet are cold. . . . Say, did they search you?” Mr. Zentner rolled up his eyes. “Outrageous,” he spluttered . . .“Vat indignities to a buyer from a neutral and friendly country. Vait till I tell the ambassador. I shall sue. I shall demand damages.” “Same here,” said Joe, laughing.
    The corporal appeared in the door and shouted, “Williams.” Joe gave back the coat and shook Mr. Zentner’s fat hand. “Say, for Gawd’s sake, don’t forget to tell the consul there’s another American here. They’re talkin’ about sendin’ me to a concentration camp for duration.” “Sure, don’t vorry, boy. I’ll get you out,” said Mr. Zentner, puffing out his chest.
    This time Joe was taken to a regular cell that had a little light and room to walk around. The corporal gave him a pair of shoes and some wool socks full of holes. He couldn’t get the shoes on but the socks warmed his feet up a little. At noon they handed him a kind of stew that was mostly potatoes with eyes in them and some more bread and margarine.
    The third day when the turnkey brought the noonday slum, he brought a brownpaper package that had been opened. In it was a suit of clothes, shirt, flannel underwear, socks and even a necktie.
    â€œThere was a chit with it, but it’s against the regulaytions,” said the turnkey. “That outfit’ll make a bloomin’ toff out of you.”
    Late that afternoon the turnkey told Joe to come along and he put on the clean collar that was too tight for his neck and the necktie and
hitched up the pants that were much too big for him around the waist and followed along corridors and across a court full of tommies into a little office with a sentry at the door and a sergeant at a desk. Sitting on a chair was a busylooking young man with a straw hat on his knees. “’Ere’s your man, sir,” said the sergeant without