insisted that he ought to give up his professorship, get naturalized,
and run for office in America. I know that he would soon be mayor of
a town, or in Congress.

When the war began he was professor of international law at the
ancient university whose walls alone stand, surrounding the ashes of
its priceless volumes, across from the ruined cathedral. With the
burgomaster a refugee from the horrors of that orgy, he turned man
of action on behalf of the demoralized people of the town with a
thousand homes in ruins. Very lucky the client in its lawyer. He is the
kind of man who makes the best of the situation; picks up the
fragments of the pitcher, cements them together with the first material
at hand, and goes for more milk. It was he who got a German
commander to sign an agreement not to "kill, burn, or plunder" any
more, and the signs were still up on some houses saying that "This
house is not to be burned except by official order."

There in the Hôtel de Ville, which is quite unharmed, he had his office,
within reach of the German commander. He yielded to Caesar and
protected his own people day in and day out, diplomatic, watchful,
Belgian. And he was cheerful. What other people could have retained
any vestige of cheer! Sometimes one wondered if it were not partly
due to an absence of keen nerve-sensibilities, or to some other of the
traits which are a product of the Belgian hothouse and Belgian
inheritance.

I might tell you about M. Nerincx's currency system; how he issued
paper promises to pay when he gave employment to the idle in
repairing those houses which permitted of being repaired, and
cleaned the streets of debris, till ruined Louvain looked as shipshape