es, and is up on his toes with interest. A lot more have
already sailed from New York, and will soon be here. They are to be
spread all over the country in the principal centres, some to stay in
the big cities and watch local conditions, and others to travel about
their districts and keep track of the needs of the different villages.
It is all working out a lot better than we had hoped for, and we have
good reason to be pleased. Our chief annoyance is that every time things
get into a comfortable state, some idiot starts the story either in
England or America that the Germans have begun to seize foodstuffs
consigned to us. Then we have to issue statements and get off telegrams,
and get renewed assurances from the German authorities and make
ourselves a general nuisance to everybody concerned. If we can choke off
such idiots, our work will be a lot easier.

The Burgomaster came into the restaurant to find us, and offered to go
on with us to Vise, to show us the town, and we were glad to have him,
as he knows the place like the palm of his hand.

I had been through Vise twice, and had marvelled at the completeness of
the destruction, but had really had no idea of what it was. It was a
town of about forty-five hundred souls, built on the side of a pretty
hill overlooking the Meuse. There are only two or three houses left. We
saw one old man, two children and a cat in the place. Where the others
are, nobody knows. The old man was well over sixty, and had that
afternoon been put off a train from Germany, where he had been as a
prisoner of war since the middle of August. He had KRIEGSGEFANGENER
MUNSTER stencilled on his coat, front and back, so that there could be
no doubt as to who he was. He was standing in the street with the tears
rolling down his cheeks and did not know where to go; he had spent the
day wandering about the neighbouring villages trying to find news of his
wife, and had just learned that she had died a month or more ago. It was
getting dark, and to see this poor old chap standing in the midst of
this welter of ruin without a chick or child or place to lay his
head.... It caught our companions hard, and they loaded the old man up
with bank-notes, which was about all that anybody could do for him and
then we went our way. We wandered through street after street of ruined
houses, sometimes whole blocks together where there were not enough
walls left to make even temporary shelters.

Near the station we were