ck?

Then, as a finishing stroke, I pulled my passport from my pocket
and showed Berlin's approval of me stamped impressively in the
right-hand corner. This vise was not at all unique with me. It
had been affixed to the passports of thousands of Americans of all
grades, and was merely to ensure passage from Germany into Holland.
As I did not wish to impose upon the time of the Commandant I did
not burden him with these extraneous details while he feasted his
eyes on the magic words: _Gesehen, Berlin_. Mount Olympus, Mecca,
Imperial and Ecclesiastical Rome all rolled into one--that is
authoritative Berlin to the German of the province.

"Gesehen, Berlin" he repeated with reverence, carefully folded the
passport and deferentially handed it back to me. I saw that I was
winning, so I sought to rise to the occasion.

"And now, Herr Commandant," I began, "can you suggest where I may
best begin my atrocity work tomorrow? Or first, would it not be
well for me to get a more complete idea of the invasion by seeing
on the map just what routes the Russians took coming in?"

He unfolded a large military map of peerless German accuracy and
regaled me for more than half an hour with the military features of
the campaign.

"Just tell me the worst things that the Russians have done," I
began, "and I will start investigating them tomorrow."

Then he anathematised the Russians and all things Russian, while
his orderly stood stiffly and admiringly at attention and the other
officers stopped in their tracks.

"First you should visit the ruins of the once beautiful old castle
at Labiau destroyed by the beasts," he thundered. "And they also
wantonly destroyed the magnificent old church near by."

He followed with an account of the history of the castle, and it
was clear that he was deeply affected by the loss of these
landscape embellishments which he had learned to love so much that
they became part of his life, and that their destruction deeply
enraged him against the enemy. Though I saw his point of view and
sympathised with him, I questioned him in the hope of learning of
some real atrocities. It was useless. Although he made general
charges against the Russians, he always reverted, when pinned down
to facts, with a fresh burst of anger, to the castle and church of
Labiau as his pet atrocity.

The orderly had just been commanded to take me on a search for
quarters for the night, when an automobile horn tooted beneath