decidedly not of military build or bearing.
When, after much red tape, I was finally admitted to an outer office,
he stepped out to see me, merely taking my name and the names of
the papers I represented. I was told to come back in the evening.
When I did so and was admitted to His Holy of Holies, he said to me
at once:--

"I was expecting you to come yesterday. Why did you not?"

This was rather startling, but his next remark altogether took away my
breath.

"Were you satisfied with your treatment by the War Office in Brussels,
Herr Green? And why, if you have already been wiss ze army in
scenes of war, do you now come to me for permission?"

Mind you, I had at this time spoken scarcely a word, and had certainly
told nothing of my age or previous condition of servitude in Brussels.
But the Government that never forgets knew all about my
movements. He smiled at my discomfiture, and, within the next few
minutes, proved to be such a genial German (for war-time) that I
soon told him all about my adventures, including the fact that I had
gone back into Antwerp and entered Belgian lines, after escaping
from German surveillance at Aix. I happened to speak of the
marvelous efficiency and preparedness of the German army in
Belgium.

"Yes, that iss quite so," remarked His Excellency, with a smile. "You
see, we were prepared for everysing--except," he added after a
pause,--"except ze invasion of ze American newspaperman. When
he iss out of our sight, zen we do not feel secure."

Several weeks later, after I had come out of the Kaiser's realm, a
representative of the "Boston Journal," who had been looking for me
all over the Continent, ran me down just as I was leaving The Hague
for England.

"The Foreign Office in Berlin told me where to find you," he said.
"They told me that in Berlin you had stayed first at the Esplanade, and
then you had moved to the Kaiserhof. They said you had left the city
[this was when I went out toward Poland], that you had returned to
Berlin, and that on such and such a date at 8.45 you had departed for
The Hague."!!

The military and civil authorities looked upon the correspondent as an
embryo spy. And if the correspondent's sympathies were foreign, he
was a thousand times worse than the ordinary spy, because he could
make use of the cable and press to spread his information.

While waiting in Berlin for a chance to go to the front, I became,
therefore, more and more conscious of s