military clerks at headquarters or driving Red Cross cars.
The local censor of the telegraph is over eighty years old--a splendid-
looking old white giant, who won the Iron Cross in the Franco-Prussian
War and retired with the rank of general years and years ago. Now, in
full uniform, he works twelve hard hours a day. The head waiter at this
hotel told me yesterday that he expected to be summoned to the colors in
a day or two. He has had his notice and is ready to go. He is more
than forty years old. I know my room waiter kept watch on me until he
satisfied himself I was what I claimed to be--an American--and not an
English spy posing as an American.

So, at first, did the cheery little girl cashier in the Arcade barber
shop downstairs. For all I know, she may still have me under suspicion
and be making daily reports on me to the secret-service people. The
women help, too--and the children. The wives and daughters of the
wealthiest men in the town are minding the sick and the wounded. The
mothers and the younger girls meet daily to make hospital supplies.
Women come to you in the cafes at night, wearing Red Cross badges on
their left arms, and shaking sealed tin canisters into which you are
expected to drop contributions for invalided soldiers.

Since so many of their teachers are carrying rifles or wearing swords,
the pupils of the grammar schools and the high schools are being
organized into squads of crop-gatherers. Beginning next week, so I
hear, they will go out into the fields and the orchards to assist in the
harvesting of the grain and the fruit. For lack of hands to get it
under cover the wheat has already begun to suffer; but the boys and
girls will bring it in.

It is now half-past eleven o'clock in the forenoon. At noon, sharp, an
excellent orchestra will begin to play in the big white casino
maintained by the city, just opposite my hotel. It will play for an
hour then, and again this afternoon, and again, weather permitting,
to-night.

The townspeople will sit about at small, white tables and listen to the
music while they sip their beer or drink their coffee. They will be
soberer and less vivacious than I imagine they were two months ago; but
then these North Germans are a sober-minded race anyhow, and they take
their amusements quietly. Also, they have taken the bad tidings of the
last few days from France very quietly.

During the afternoon crowds will gather on the viaduct, just abo