leaning back in their
chairs at a table by the wayside surveyed me intently as I came
along. Rather than wait to be challenged, I thought it best to turn
aside and ask them my usual question, "How does one get to
Liege?"

One of them answered somewhat stiffly, adding, "And where did
you learn your German?" "I was in a German university a few
months," I replied. "Which one?" the officer asked. "Marburg," I
replied.

"Ah!" he said, this time with a smile; "that was mine. I studied
philology there."

We talked together of the fine, rich life there, and I spoke of the
students' duels I had witnessed a few miles out.

"Ah!" he said, uncovering his head and pointing to the scars
across his scalp; "that's where I got these. Perhaps I will get some
deeper ones down in this country," he added with a smile.

Ofttimes in the early morning hours I had trudged out to a
students' inn on the outskirts of Marburg. As many times I had
heard the solemn announcement of the umpire warning all
assembled to disperse as the place might be raided by the police
and all imprisoned. That was a mere formality. No one left. The
umpire forthwith cried "Los," there was a flash of swords in the air
as each duelist sought, and sometimes succeeded, in cutting his
opponent's face into a Hamburg steak. It was a sanguinary affair
and undoubtedly connived at by the officials. When I had asked
what was the point of it all, I was told that it developed Mut and
Enschlossenheit--a fine contempt of pain and blood. That dueling
was not without its contribution to the general program of German
preparedness. Only now the bloodletting was gone at on a
colossal scale.

"Yes, that's where I received these cuts," this young officer said,
"and if I do not get some too deep down here I'll write to you after
the war," he added with another smile. As I gave him my address,
I asked for his.

"It's against all the rules," he answered. "It can't be done. But you
shall hear from me, I assure you," he said with a hearty
handshake.

Only once all the way into Liege did I feel any suspicion directed
towards me. That was when I presented my paper to the next
guard, a morose-looking individual. He looked at it very puzzled,
and put several questions to me. His last one was,

"Where is your home?"

"I come from Boston, Massachusetts," I replied.

Encouraged with my success with the last officers, I ventured to
ask him where he came from.

Looking me straight in