the square fronting the railroad station and disappeared behind a mass
of low buildings. From that direction we presently heard shots. Soon
the van came back, unescorted this time; and behind it came Belgians
with Red Cross arm badges, bearing on their shoulders two litters on
which were still figures covered with blankets, so that only the
stockinged feet showed.

Twice thereafter this play was repeated, with slight variations, and
each time we Americans, looking on from our front windows, drew our own
conclusions. Also, from the same vantage point we saw an automobile
pass bearing a couple of German officers and a little, scared-looking
man in a frock coat and a high hat, whose black mustache stood out like
a charcoal mark against the very white background of his face. This
little man, we learned, was the burgomaster, and this day he was being
held a prisoner and responsible for the good conduct of some fifty-odd
thousand of his fellow citizens. That night our host, a gross, silent
man in carpet slippers, told us the burgomaster was ill in bed at home.

"He suffers," explained our landlord in French, "from a crisis of the
nerves." The French language is an expressive language.

Then, coming a pace nearer, our landlord added a question in a cautious
whisper.

"Messieurs," he asked, "do you think it can be true, as my neighbors
tell me, that the United States President has ordered the Germans to get
out of our country?"

We shook our heads, and he went silently away in his carpet slippers;
and his broad Flemish face gave no hint of what corrosive thoughts he