his predecessor. A fortnight ago one of the enemy's flyers struck one
of our balloons with a bomb and the gas envelope exploded. When the
wreckage reached the earth there was nothing much left of the operator--
poor fellow!--except the melted buttons on his coat. There are very few
safe jobs in this army, but being a captive-balloon observer is one of
the least safe of them all."

I had noted that the young captain wore in the second buttonhole of his
tunic the black-and-white-striped ribbon and the black-and-white Maltese
Cross; and now when I looked about me I saw that at least every third
man of the present company likewise bore such a decoration. I knew the
Iron Cross was given to a man only for gallant conduct in time of war at
the peril of his life.

A desire to know a few details beset me. Humplmayer, the scholarly art
dealer, was at my side. He had it too--the Iron Cross of the first
class.

"You won that lately?" I began, touching the ribbon.

"Yes," he said; "only the other day I received it."

"And for what, might I ask?" said I, pressing my advantage.

"Oh," he said, "I've been out quite a bit in the night air lately. You
know we Germans are desperately afraid of night air."

Later I learned--though not from Humplmayer--that he had for a period of
weeks done scout work in an automobile in hostile territory; which meant
that he rode in the darkness over the strange roads of an alien country,