men looked with a tolerant smile, the
street was again deserted. Major Kellner rode straight up to the
mairie, and Paul and Arthur could see that he was holding a conference
with the maire. The battalion was halted and during this conference
stood at ease. Then quick orders came back; never from the officers,
but always, Paul noticed, from the non-commissioned officers, to whom
the captains and lieutenants gave the commands.

Then the battalion split up. One company broke ranks and immediately
swarmed through the village, looking curiously at everything, while the
other marched on, passing out of sight before long in a cloud of dust.
Major Kellner remained with the company that stayed behind, and Paul
and Arthur, who were at liberty, seemingly, to wander about the village
as they pleased, saw him looking for quarters in disgust. After a time
he settled upon the house of the local doctor, and there he and the
officers were soon at home. Meanwhile the men scattered themselves in
the different houses of the place, two to each house, as a rule, though
sometimes there were more.

"Why are they staying here, I wonder?" said Arthur.

"I don't know," said Paul, with a shrug of his shoulders. "But I
suppose there will be fighting all along here if the Germans advance on
Brussels. It's all done on orders from the staff headquarters, you
see. If I knew what sort of a force was operating here, perhaps I
could tell you. I think Liege is being attacked by one army
corps--that's about forty-five thousand men, in three divisions. These
men may be part of a division that is operating independently, or they
may be getting their orders from the headquarters of a whole army."

"What do you mean by army? The whole German army?"

"No. You know roughly how they will divide their forces, don't you?
An army has a certain work to do. It may be of almost any size--two
hundred, three hundred, even five or six hundred thousand men. That
is, from five to fifteen army corps. It has its own commanding
general, who is responsible to the general staff. One plan that I've
heard talked about as likely to be used by the Germans is to have two
armies coming through Belgium, one through Luxembourg, one through
Lorraine and one from the Rhine Valley. Then they would have one army
in East Prussia and another in Silesia to fight against the Russians."

"I see. Paul, aren't you hungry? I am."

"So am I, now that you remind me of it! L