zing,
asthmatic voice. I struck off blindly down the first turning we came to,
hoping to be rid of the fellow, but in vain. Finally, I stopped and held
out a gulden.

"Take this and go away!" I said.

The old fellow waved the coin aside.

"Danke, danke," he said nonchalantly, looking at the same time to right
and left.

Then he said in a calm English voice, utterly different from his whining
accents of a moment before:

"You must be a dam' cool hand!"

But he didn't bluff me, staggered though I was. I said quickly in
German:

"What do you want with me? I don't understand you. If you annoy me any
more I shall call the police!"

Again he spoke in English and it was the voice of a well-bred Englishman
that spoke:

"You're either a past master at the game or raving mad. Why! the whole
station is humming after you! Yet you walked out of the buffet and
through the whole lot of them without turning a hair. No wonder they
never spotted you!"

Again I answered in German:

"Ich verstehe nicht!"

But he went on in English, without seeming to notice my observation:

"Hang it all, man, you can't go into Germany wearing a regimental tie!"

My hand flew to my collar and the blood to my head. What a cursed
amateur I was, after all! I had entirely forgotten that I was wearing my
regimental colours. I was crimson with vexation but also with a sense of
relief. I felt I might trust this man. It would be a sharp German agent
who would notice a small detail like that.

Still I resolved to stick to German: I would trust nobody.

But the guide had started his patter again. I saw two workmen
approaching. When they had passed, he said, this time in English:

"You're quite right to be cautious with a stranger like me, but I want
to warn you. Why, I've been following you round all the morning. Lucky
for you it was me and not one of the others...."

Still I was silent. The little man went on:

"For the past half-hour they have been combing that station for you. How
you managed to escape them I don't know except that none of them seems
to have a very clear idea of your appearance. You don't look very
British, I grant you; but I spotted your tie and then I recognized the
British officer all right.

"No, don't worry to tell me anything about yourself--it is none of my
business to know, any more than you will find out anything about me. I
know where you are going, for I heard you take your ticket; but you may
as well underst