n.

So I queried, "You're an American, are you?"

"Not exactly," he responded; "but I would like to talk with you."

Without the shadow of a suspicion, I told him it would be a great
relief from the tedium of the day to talk to any one.

"But I would prefer to talk to you in your room," he added.

"Certainly," I responded, stepping toward the elevator.

The hotel was practically deserted, so I was somewhat surprised
when two men, one a huge fellow built on a superdreadnaught
plan, followed us in and got out with us on the fifth floor. The
superdreadnaught sailed on into my room, which seemed a
breach of propriety for an un-introduced stranger. He closed the
door rudely behind him. I was prepared to resent this altogether
high-handed intrusion, when my tall guest said, very simply, "I am
representing the Imperial German Government."

I rallied under the shock sufficiently to say, "Will you take a chair?"

"No," came the laconic reply, "I will take you--and this," he said,
reaching for the piece of scribble-paper I had in my hands, "and
any baggage you have in your room."

I assured him that I had none, as I really expected to stay in
Brussels but a day. He pretended not to hear my reply, and said,

"We better take it with us, for we will probably need it."

He looked under the bed and unlocked the closet door. Finding
nothing, he asked for the key to my room. I handed it over, Room
Number 502.

"You will be so good as to follow me now."

Now every one knows that the Spy-Season in Europe opened with
the beginning of the war. Spy hunting became at once a veritable
mania.

Consequently no self-respecting person returns from the war-zone
without at least one hair-raising story of being taken as a spy.
Being just an average species of American, I exhale no particular
air of mystery or villainy; yet I suffered a score of times the laying
on of hands by German, French, Belgian, and even Dutch authorities.

But this experience is marked off from all my other ordeals in four
ways. In the first place, instead of casually falling into the hands of
my captors, they came after me in full force. In the second place, a
specific charge of using money for bribing information was laid
against me, and witnesses were at hand. In the third place, the
leader of the party arrested me in civilian dress, but before
examination and trial he changed to military uniform. In the fourth
place, the officials were in such a surly moo