At length my passport was folded and returned to me, but my
credentials and reference books were sealed in an envelope. They
would be returned to me later, I was told.

I was shunted along into an adjoining small room where nimble
fingers dexterously ran through my clothing to find out if I had
overlooked declaring anything.

Another shunting and I was in a large room. I rubbed elbows with
more soldiers along the way, but nobody spoke. Miraculously I came
to a halt before a huge desk, much as a bar of glowing iron, after
gliding like a living thing along the floor of a rolling mill,
halts suddenly at the bidding of a distant hand.

Behind the desk stood men in active service uniforms--men who had
undoubtedly faced death for the land which I was seeking to enter.
They fired further questions at me and took down the data on my
passport, after which I wrote my signature for the official files.
Attacks came hard and fast from the front and both flanks, while a
silent soldier thumbed through a formidable card file, apparently
to see if I were a _persona non grata_, or worse, in the records.

I became conscious of a silent power to my left, and turning my
glance momentarily from the rapid-fire questioners at the desk, I
looked into a pair of lynx eyes flashing up and down my person.
Another detective, with probably the added role of interpreter, but
as I was answering all questions in German he said not a word. Yet
he looked volumes.