third person in the car when you
left there!" "_Pas du tout._" "On the contrary, I have three witnesses
to prove it." Aside from the fact that nobody could have got to Alost in
the time we had, it made no real difference how many people we had in
the car, and Blount said as much. Then our accuser changed his plan of
attack. "I observed you when you arrived, and you were speaking a
language which was perhaps not German, but sounded like English." "It
was," said Blount. "Aha," triumphantly, "but you said you were
Americans!"

By this time the Chef de Gare had come to answer our questions and we
waved our persecutors aside while we talked to him. They kept quiet and
meekly stood aside, as we bade them. While we talked with our
functionary, I looked out on the square and saw that we were a real
sensation. The Garde Civique had been called out and was keeping the
place clear. The crowd was banked up solid around the other three sides
of the square. They looked hopeful of seeing the German spies brought
out and shot. By signing our names on a scrap of paper, which the
amateurs compared with the signatures on different papers we had about
us, we convinced them that we were harmless citizens, and were allowed
to go. The crowd seemed greatly disappointed to see us walk out free.
The Garde Civique let them loose as we got in the car, and they came
thronging around for a good close look at us.

We honk-honked our way through them, thanking our lucky stars we had not
had a worse time of it.

At the edge of the town we looked up and saw two German aeroplanes
snooping around. A minute later a crowd of people surged across the
street to bar our way, shouting that we must go no farther, as the
Germans were approaching the town and that it was dangerous to proceed.
Two young officers came across the street to tell us in great glee that
they had made a dash in a motor at the first German outpost and had
brought in four prisoners. They were bursting with joy in their exploit,
but by this time they may themselves be prisoners.

In a few minutes we came to the first German outpost, and had our papers
carefully examined. From then on we were held up every few yards and
nearly had our papers worn out from much handling. At one place a young
Lieutenant looked over our papers and burst out into roars of laughter
at the name of von Jarotzky. He called to other officers. They came up,
looked at the signature, and also burst out into loud laug