He reproved me firmly.

"They have asked us not to question them," he said, "and when they
are working for all I have no right to embarrass them with my personal
trouble."

As the chance of obtaining credentials with the British army appeared
doubtful, I did not remain in London, but at once crossed to Belgium.

Before the Germans came, Brussels was an imitation Paris--
especially along the inner boulevards she was Paris at her best. And
her great parks, her lakes gay with pleasure-boats or choked with lily-
pads, her haunted forests, where your taxicab would startle the wild
deer, are the most beautiful I have ever seen in any city in the world.
As, in the days of the Second Empire, Louis Napoleon bedecked
Paris, so Leopold decorated Brussels. In her honor and to his own
glory he gave her new parks, filled in her moats along her ancient
fortifications, laid out boulevards shaded with trees, erected arches,
monuments, museums. That these jewels he hung upon her neck
were wrung from the slaves of the Congo does not make them the
less beautiful. And before the Germans came the life of the people of
Brussels was in keeping with the elegance, beauty, and joyousness
of their surroundings.

At the Palace Hotel, which is the clearing-house for the social life of
Brussels, we found everybody taking his ease at a little iron table on
the sidewalk. It was night, but the city was as light as noonday--
brilliant, elated, full of movement and color. For Liege was still held by
the Belgians, and they believed that all along the line they were
holding back the German army. It was no wonder they were jubilant.