en you have been, and why you have come now,
and what you are doing, and how long you propose to stay. They tell
you in London you do not need a passport in Germany, and they tell you
in Berlin that you must either produce one or be handed over for
inquiry to your Embassy. Last year when I was there I produced one
twenty-three years old. I had not troubled to get a new one, but I
came across this, quite yellow with age, and I thought it might serve
to make some official happy; for I had once seen my husband get
himself, me, and our bicycles over the German frontier and into
Switzerland, and next morning back into Germany, by showing the
gendarmes on the bridge his C.T.C. ticket. I cannot say that my
ancient passport made my official exactly happy. Twenty-three years
ago he was certainly in a _Steckkissen_, and no doubt he felt that in
those days, in a world without him to set it right, anything might
happen.

"Twenty-three years," he bellowed at the top of his voice, for he saw
that I was _fremd_, and wished to make himself clear. We are not the
only people who scream at foreigners that they may understand.
"Twenty-three years. But it is a lifetime."

It was for him no doubt. I admitted that twenty-three years was--well,
twenty-three years, and explained that I had been told at a
_Reisebureau_ that a passport was unnecessary.

"They know nothing in England," he said gloomily. "With us a passport
is necessary; but what is a passport twenty-three years old?"

I admitted that, from the official point of view, it was not much, and
he made no further difficulties. As a rule you need not go to the
police bureau at all. The people you are with will get the necessary
papers, and fill them in for you; but I wanted to see whether the
German jack-in-office was as bad as his reputation makes him. Germans
themselves often complain bitterly of the treatment they receive at
the hands of these lower class officials.

"I went to the police station," said a German lady who lived in
England, and was in her own country on a visit. "I went to _anmelden_
myself, but not one of the men in the office troubled to look up. When
I had stood there till I was tired I said that I wished someone to
attend to me. Every pen stopped, every head was raised, astounded by
my impertinence. But no one took any notice of my request. I waited a
little longer, and then fetched myself a chair that someone had left
unoccupied. I did not do it to make a sens