and that you have as much chance of getting into your
train if you walk into the railway hall and up the stairs in the
ordinary way as you have of flying across the frontier."

"But they can't stop me!" I said. "This isn't Germany...."

"Bah!" said the guide. "You will be jostled, there will be an
altercation, a false charge, and you will miss your train! _They_ will
attend to the rest!

"Damn it, man," he went on, "I know what I'm talking about. Here, come
with me and I'll show you. You have twenty minutes before the train
goes. Now start the German again!"

We went down the street together for all the world like a "mug" in tow
of one of those black-guard guides. As we approached the station the
guide said in his whining German:

"Pay attention to me now. I shall leave you here. Go to the suburban
booking-office--the entrance is in the street to the left of the
station hall. Go into the first-class waiting-room and look out of
the window that gives on to the station hall. There you will see some
of the forces mobilized against you. There is a regular cordon of
guides--like me--drawn across the entrances to the main-line
platforms--unostentatiously, of course. If you look you will see plenty
of plain-clothes Huns, too...."

"Guides?" I said.

He nodded cheerfully.

"Looks bad for me, doesn't it? But one gets better results by being one
of them. Oh! it's all right. In any case you've got to trust me now.

"See here! When you have satisfied yourself that I'm correct in what I
say, take a platform ticket and walk upstairs to platform No. 5. On that
platform you will find a train. Go to the end where the metals run out
of the station, where the engine would be coupled on, and get into the
last first-class carriage. On no account move from there until you see
me. Now then, I'll have that gulden!"

I gave him the coin. The old fellow looked at it and wagged his head, so
I gave him another, whereupon he took off his cap, bowed low and hurried
off.

In the suburban side waiting-room I peered out of the window on to the
station hall. True enough, I saw one, two, four, six guides loafing
about the barriers leading to the main-line platforms. There seemed to
be a lot of people in the hall and certainly a number of the men
possessed that singular taste in dress, those rotundities of contour,
by which one may distinguish the German in a crowd.

I now had no hesitation in following the guide's instructions to the
lett