ay. Then after a few minutes
he came gravely back, clicked his heels, and announced that there was no
telegraph communication with the outside world and that he did not know
when it would be reestablished. I asked him to go back to the General,
who in the meantime had retreated to the Gothic room and had locked
himself in with a group of officers. My friend came back again, rather
red in the face, and said that he had authority to stamp my telegrams
and let them go. He put the rubber stamp on them and said I could take
them. I said that was all very well, but where could I take them, since
the telegraph offices were closed. He went off again and came back with
the word that the office in the central bureau was working for official
messages. I got into the motor with the Italian Secretary, who had a
similar task, and together we went to the central bureau. It was nailed
up tight, and the German sentries on guard at the door swore to us by
their _Ehrenwort_ that there was absolutely nothing doing.

Back we went to the Hotel de Ville. Our friend, the aide-de-camp, had
disappeared, but we got hold of another and asked him to inform himself.
He went away and we spent a few minutes watching the General blow up
everybody in sight; when the aide-de-camp came back, he smilingly
announced that there was no way of getting the messages out on the wire;
that the best thing we could do would be to send a courier to Holland
and telegraph from there. I told him to go back and get another answer.
When he came back next time, he had the glad news that the office had
really been established in the post office and that orders had been sent
over there to have our cables received and sent at once. Away we went
again, only to find that the latest bulletin was just as good as the
others; the post office was closed up just as tight as the other office,
and the sentries turned us away with a weary explanation that there was
not a living soul inside, as though they had explained it a thousand
times since they had been on duty.

By this time the wild-goose chasing was getting a little bit monotonous,
and when we got back to the headquarters, I announced with some emphasis
to the first aide-de-camp that I could reach, that I did not care to do
any more of it; that I wanted him to get me the right information, and
do it right away, so that I should not have to go back to my chief and
report any more futile errands. He went away in some trepidation a