uld probably do the same. The two men are on
exceedingly workable terms, but I don't believe they will exchange
photographs after the war is over. Poor Max was going to spend the night
at the Hotel de Ville. Most of his assistants cleared out for the
night, but he could not bring himself to leave the beautiful old
building entirely in control of the enemy. He curled up and slept on the
couch in his office, just for the feeling it gave him that he was
maintaining some sort of hold on the old place.

The Minister arranged to have his telegrams accepted and transmitted
without loss of time, so we shall soon get word home that we are still
in the land of the living. We wrote out our message and sent it off
right after dinner, but Gustave brought it back, saying that the
telegraph office was closed and that he could find no one to whom he
could hand his bundle of messages. Evidently the orders for the
re-opening of the place did not get around in time for our purposes. We
shall try again the first thing in the morning, and hope that some of
the newspaper men will have succeeded in getting their stuff out in some
other way. They were around in force just after dinner and wild to get
an O.K. on their stuff, so that it could be sent. The General had said
that he wanted the Minister's O.K. on the men themselves, and that he
himself would approve their messages after having them carefully read to
him. He gave them an interview on alleged German atrocities and will
probably let them send through their stories if they play that up
properly.

After dinner I started out on my usual expedition in search of news. I
found the Foreign Office closed, and learned upon inquiry that the few
remaining men who had not gone to Antwerp were at home and would not be
around again for the present--thus we have no dealings through the
Foreign Office, but must do the best we can with the military
authorities. I went down to the Palace Hotel on the chance of picking up
a little news, but did not have much luck. The restaurant was half
filled with German officers, who were dining with great gusto. The
Belgians in the cafe were gathered just as far away as possible, and it
was noticeable that instead of the usual row of conversation, there was
a heavy silence brooding over the whole place.

* * * * *

_August 21, 1914._--So far as we can learn we are still as completely
cut off from the outside worl