couple
that had been left in the car by accident in the morning. If we had only
thought a little, we could have taken out a cartful of papers and given
pleasure to hundreds.

The barricades were more numerous as we drew nearer the town. About two
miles out we were stopped dead. Fighting was going on just ahead, between
us and the town, and the order had been given out that _nobody_ should
pass. That applied to military and civilians alike, so we could not
complain, and came back to Louvain, rejoicing that we had been able to
get so far.

We hunted up our little cafe and ate our sandwiches at a table on the
sidewalk, letting the house profit to the extent of three glasses of
beer. We were hardly seated when a hush fell on the people sitting near.
The proprietor was summoned and a whispered conversation ensued between
him and a bewhiskered old man three tables away. Then Mr. Proprietor
sauntered over our way with the exaggerated carelessness of a stage
detective. He stood near us for a minute or two, apparently very much
interested in nothing at all. Then he went back, reported to "Whiskers"
and the buzz of conversation began again as though nothing had happened.
After a bit the proprietor came over again, welcomed us to the city,
asked us a lot of questions about ourselves, and finally confided to us
that we had been pointed out as Germans and that he had listened to us
carefully and discovered that we were nothing of the sort. "_J'ai tres
bonne oreille pour les langues_," he said. Of course we were greatly
surprised to learn that we had been under observation. Think of German
spies within 200 yards of the headquarters of the General Staff! (And
yet they have caught them that near.) Every active citizen now considers
himself a policeman on special duty to catch spies, and lots of people
suffer from it. I was just as glad the proprietor had not denounced us
as spies, as the populace has a quite understandable distaste for them.
I was glad the bright cafe proprietor could distinguish our lingo from
German.

After lunch we went down to the headquarters of the General Staff, to
see if we needed any more vises. We did not, but we got a sight of the
headquarters with officers in all sorts of uniforms coming and going.
The square was full of staff autos. The beautiful carved Hotel de Ville
is the headquarters. As we walked by, a British Major-General came down
the steps, returned everybody's salutes and rolled away--a fine g