Page:Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field.djvu/159

 which I don't own, and I paid church taxes although I never go to church. I am tired of your tax rot. I won't pay another pfennig.'

"'Take a care, Herr Clemens,' warned the mister policeman. 'I heard you mention the name of our All Gracious Kaiser, and now you talk like an anarchist. We won't stand for that in Berlin.'

"'Who are we?' I asked.

"'The police,' he answered.

"'Well, tell the police to!'

"And no sooner had I uttered that revolutionary platitude when the mister policeman dumped his helmet on his frowzy bean, knocked his heels together, and put his right hand on his sword hilt and sang out:

"'Herr, you are under arrest.'

"Whereupon all the women of the household and all the listening neighbors were petrified with terror. But I laughed to beat the band to hide my cowardice. My hilarity took the mister policeman off his perch for the moment, and he said:

"'What are you laughing at?'

"I answered: 'I am tickled because you threaten me with jail, with the gallows perhaps, and don't know enough to state the nature of my crime.'

"'That's easy, you are arrested for a breach of the city regulations. You allowed your servants to put the bedclothes near the window, and when I stand on tiptoes on the other side of the street, I can see them.' 155