We
often speculated as to how in the early days the gods and
goddesses, dressed as they were, or as they were not, survived the
snows of Mount Olympus. Or was it only their resort for the
summer?
It got about that we had a vast room to ourselves, where one might
obtain a drink, or a sofa for the night, or even money to cable
for money. So, we had many strange visitors, some half starved,
half frozen, with terrible tales of the Albanian trail, of the
Austrian prisoners fallen by the wayside, of the mountain passes
heaped with dead, of the doctors and nurses wading waist-high in
snowdrifts and for food killing the ponies. Some of our visitors
wanted to get their names in the American papers so that the folks
at home would know they were still alive, others wanted us to keep
their names out of the papers, hoping the police would think them
dead; another, convinced it was of pressing news value, desired us
to advertise the fact that he had invented a poisonous gas for use
in the trenches. With difficulty we prevented him from casting it
adrift in our room. Or, he had for sale a second-hand motorcycle,
or he would accept a position as barkeeper, or for five francs
would sell a state secret that, once made public, in a month would
end the war. It seemed cheap at the price.
Each of us had his "scouts" to bring him the bazaar rumor, the
Turkish bath rumor, the cafe rumor.
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