rgeous title--it was the House of the Thousand
Columns, which was as true a saying as though it had been named the
House of the One Column; for it had neither one column nor a thousand,
but only a small, dingy beer bar below and some ten dismal living rooms
above. Established here, we set about getting in touch with the German
higher-ups, since we were likely to be mistaken for Englishmen, which
would be embarrassing certainly, and might even be painful. At the
hotel next door--for all the buildings flanking this square were hotels
of a sort--we found a group of officers.

One of them, a tall, handsome, magnetic chap, with a big, deep laugh and
a most beautiful command of our own tongue, turned out to be a captain
on the general staff. It seemed to him the greatest joke in the world
that four American correspondents should come looking for war in a
taxicab, and should find it too. He beat himself on his flanks in the
excess of his joy, and called up half a dozen friends to hear the
amazing tale; and they enjoyed it too.

He said he felt sure his adjutant would appreciate the joke; and, as
incidentally his adjutant was the person in all the world we wanted most
just then to see, we went with him to headquarters, which was a mile
away in the local Palais de Justice--or, as we should say in America,
the courthouse. By now it was good and dark; and as no street lamps
burned we walked through a street that was like a tunnel for blackness.

The roadway was full of infantry still pressing forward to a camping
place somewhere beyond the town. We could just make out the shadowy
shapes of the men, but their feet made a noise like thunderclaps, and
they sang a German marching song with a splendid lilt and swing to it.

"Just listen!" said the captain proudly. "They are always like that--
they march all day and half the night, and never do they grow weary.
They are in fine spirits--our men. And we can hardly hold them back.
They will go forward--always forward!

"In this war we have no such command as Retreat! That word we have
blotted out. Either we shall go forward or we shall die! We do not
expect to fall back, ever. The men know this; and if our generals would
but let them they would run to Paris instead of walking there."

I think it was not altogether through vainglory he spoke. He was not a
bombastic sort. I think he voiced the intent of the army to which he
belonged.

At the Palais de Justice the adjutant w