the special will be ready in
twenty-five minutes. But there is no hurry. You have an hour or more to
spare. Might I offer the Herr Doktor a glass of beer and a sandwich at
our officers' casino here?"

Well, I was in for it this time. A special bearing me Heaven knows
whither on unknown business...! Perhaps I might be able to extract a
little information out of my fat friend if I went with him, so I
accepted his invitation with suitable condescension.

The Major excused himself for an instant and returned with my overcoat
and bag.

"So!" he cried, "we can leave these here until we come back!" Behind him
through the open door I saw a group of officials peering curiously into
the room. As we walked through their midst, they fell back with
precipitation. There was a positive reverence about their manner which I
found extremely puzzling.

A waggonette, driven by an orderly, stood in the station yard, one of
the Customs officials, hat in hand, at the door. We drove rapidly
through very spick-and-span streets to a little square where the sentry
at an iron gate denoted the Officers' Club. In the anteroom four or five
officers in field-grey uniform were lounging. As we entered they sprang
to their feet and remained stiffly standing while the Major presented
them, Hauptmann Pfahl, Oberleutnant Meyer ... a string of names. One of
the officers had lost an arm, another was very lame, the remainder were
obvious dug-outs.

"An American gentleman, a good friend of ours," was the form in which
the Major introduced me to the company. Again I found myself mystified
by the extraordinary demonstrations of respect with which I was
received. Germans don't like Americans, especially since they took to
selling shells to the Allies, and I began to think that all these
officers must know more about me and my mission than I did myself. A
stolid orderly, wearing white gloves, brought beer and some
extraordinary nasty-looking sardine sandwiches which, on sampling, I
realized to be made of "war bread."

While the beer was being poured out I glanced round the room, bare and
very simply furnished. Terrible chromo-lithographs of the Kaiser and the
Crown Prince hung on the walls above a glass filled with war trophies.
With a horrible sickness at heart I recognized amongst other emblems a
glengarry with a silver badge and a British steel helmet with a gaping
hole through the crown. Then I remembered I was in the region of the
VIIth Corps, which su