his way to the battle front near---
-----, where he was taken into custody and brought before Von
Mumm, then on a visit to Staff Headquarters.

"I find one of your countrymen wizin ze army lines," is the way
Excellency von Mumm is reported as telling the story, "and I say to
him, 'Herr Swing, it iss strongly forbidden zat a newspaper man come
to ze front. It is not permitted zat any one come here; you must go
away.'

"Very goot, Excellency," said Swing.

"Ze next day I am extr-r-remely sorry to encounter ze same
chentleman, and I say to him, 'Go away at once. If you are not gone
in one hour you will be shot!'

"Very goot, Excellency," answered Herr Swing. "Auf wiedersehn."

"Zat Very afternoon, to my sur-r-r-prise and gr-r-reat astonishment, I
see him again. He was still in ze army lines. And I say to him, 'Now I
have you! This time you will be shot at sunrise!'

"And he look at me and say:--

"'Very goot, Excellency. Zat make perfectly bully story for my paper.'

"And I look at him for a minute, and I do not know whether to shoot
him or to laugh.

"And you know, I cannot help myself but to laugh."

And finally there was the case of Cyril Brown, staff correspondent of
the "New York Times" in Berlin, with whom I floundered through the
maze of official red tape and military snares that entangled the
reporter at the German capital. Brown is an individual with a sense of
humor and a Mark Twain penchant for ten-pfennig cigars. He takes
his work seriously, but, unlike most war correspondents, not himself.
After some interesting freight-car adventures of his own planning, he
reached the Grosser Hauptquartier, a small city on the Meuse, where
at that time the brain of the German fighting machine was located.
This most vulnerable spot of the entire German Empire was,
paradoxically, in France. The Kaiser, the King of Saxony, the Crown
Prince of Germany, and Field Marshal von Moltke were here holding
council of war. It was therefore of utmost importance to conceal the
locality. Neutral correspondents were not allowed: the German press,
even if it knew, would not dare to breathe its whereabouts. When
Brown by strategy got inside the red-and-white striped poles which
marked the entrance to the Over War Lord's quarters, he was at once
arrested and taken before Major Nikolai, head of the Kaiser's
bodyguard and chief of the field detectives.

It was late at night, and it was determined that Brown should go on