by the extraordinary demonstrations of respect with which I was
received. Germans don't like Americans, especially since they took to
selling shells to the Allies, and I began to think that all these
officers must know more about me and my mission than I did myself. A
stolid orderly, wearing white gloves, brought beer and some
extraordinary nasty-looking sardine sandwiches which, on sampling, I
realized to be made of "war bread."

While the beer was being poured out I glanced round the room, bare and
very simply furnished. Terrible chromo-lithographs of the Kaiser and the
Crown Prince hung on the walls above a glass filled with war trophies.
With a horrible sickness at heart I recognized amongst other emblems a
glengarry with a silver badge and a British steel helmet with a gaping
hole through the crown. Then I remembered I was in the region of the
VIIth Corps, which supplies some of our toughest opponents on the
Western front.

Conversation was polite and perfunctory.

"It is on occasions such as these," said the lame officer, "that one
recognizes how our brothers overseas are helping the German cause."

"Your work must be extraordinarily interesting," observed one of the
dug-outs.

"All your difficulties are now over," said the Major, much in the manner
of the chorus of a Greek play. "You will be in Berlin to-night, where
your labours will be doubtless rewarded. American friends of Germany are
not popular in London, I should imagine!"