He looked under the bed and unlocked the closet door. Finding
nothing, he asked for the key to my room. I handed it over, Room
Number 502.

"You will be so good as to follow me now."

Now every one knows that the Spy-Season in Europe opened with
the beginning of the war. Spy hunting became at once a veritable
mania.

Consequently no self-respecting person returns from the war-zone
without at least one hair-raising story of being taken as a spy.
Being just an average species of American, I exhale no particular
air of mystery or villainy; yet I suffered a score of times the laying
on of hands by German, French, Belgian, and even Dutch authorities.

But this experience is marked off from all my other ordeals in four
ways. In the first place, instead of casually falling into the hands of
my captors, they came after me in full force. In the second place, a
specific charge of using money for bribing information was laid
against me, and witnesses were at hand. In the third place, the
leader of the party arrested me in civilian dress, but before
examination and trial he changed to military uniform. In the fourth
place, the officials were in such a surly mood that my message to
the American Ambassador was undelivered, and at the last trial
before the American representatives there was no apology, but
rather the sullen attitude of those who had been balked in bagging
their game.