I read it over and over again, getting more bewildered each time.

"The Deputies of Alsace and Lorraine have refused to vote in the German Reichstag!" "But--good heavens!" I almost screamed to myself, "_what_ were the Alsace and Lorraine Deputies doing in the German Parliament at all ?" I turned the matter over and over in my mind, and at last, finding that I was getting worked up into a state of dangerous excitement, I threw the paper from me and walked away.

I thought over the matter again, and so utterly incomprehensible did it appear to me that I thought I must be mistaken--that my eyes must have deceived me.

Accordingly I ran back and picked the paper up a second time, and there, sure enough, was the same passage.

In vain did I seek for any sane explanation, and at last I somehow got it into my head that the appearance of the printed characters must be due to a kind of mental obliquity, and that I must be rapidly going mad! Even Yamba could not sympathise with me, because the matter was one which I never could have made her understand.