ssistant
was inquiring for the latest bulletins of war. For some minutes I
watched this little group with an intuition that tragedy was likely to leap
out upon them. They belonged to the apache class, as it was easy to
see by the cut of the men's trousers tucked into their boots, with a
sash round the waist, and by the velvet bonnets pulled down
sideways over their thin-featured faces and sharp jaws. The women
had shawls over their heads and high-heeled shoes under their skirts.
At the Alhambra in London the audience would have known what
dance to expect when such a group had slouched into the glamour of
the footlights. They were doing a kind of slow dance now, though
without any music except that of women's sobs and a man's sibilant
curses. The younger of the two men was horribly drunk, and it was
clear that the others were trying to drag him home before trouble
came. They swayed with him up and down, picked him up when he
fell, swiped him in the face when he tried to embrace one of the
women, and lurched with him deeper into the throat of the alley. Then
suddenly the trouble came. Four of those shadows on bicycles rode
out of the darkness and closed in.

As sharp and distinct as pistol shots two words came to my ears out
of the sudden silence and stillness which had arrested the four
people:

"Vos papiers!"

There was no "s'il vous plait" this time.

It was clear that one at least of the men--I guessed it was the
drunkard--had no papers explaining his presence in Paris, and that
he was one of the embusques for whom the Military Governor was
searching in the poorer quarters of the city (in the richer quarters
there was not such a sharp search for certain young gentlemen of
good family who had failed to answer the call to the colours), and for
whom there was a very rapid method of punishment on the sunny
side of a white wall. Out of the silence of that night came shriek after
shriek. The two women abandoned themselves to a wild and terror-
stricken grief. One of them flung herself on to her knees, clutching at
an agent de police, clasping him with piteous and pleading hands,
until he jerked her away from him. Then she picked herself up and
leant against a wall, moaning and wailing like a wounded animal. The
drunkard was sobered enough to stand upright in the grasp of two
policemen while the third searched him. By the light of the street lamp
I saw his blanched face and sunken eyes. Two minutes later the
police le