Are we then through with
everything? No. The Orient Express requires a doctor's certificate
that you are free from vermin and infection. For this the doctors
naturally charge a heavy fee. For my part I refused to see a doctor
and carried the matter off with a high hand at the railway station,
where they put me down as "officer in mufti." Apparently officers are
exempted from all this. It is only if you happen to be one of the
ordinary dirty and despised free citizens of Europe and not a member of
any Commission or Red Cross or Y.M.C.A., or military unit--that you go
through all this. Europe for the man in uniform!

So useful is the military uniform that some civilians carry their
ex-khaki attire in an extra suit-case and put it on when they want to
get along. I met an Englishman, ex-officer, in this get-up in the
Serbian Constituent Assembly. He could beard whom he liked in
Jugo-Slavia clad in an old uniform with ribbons. I heard of another in
Austria who was arrested at the chief station in Vienna, having four
millions of Austrian crowns on his person. Austrian crowns are worth
much more in London than in Vienna, and it is illegal to take large
quantities out of the country. But an observant speculator had
concluded that a British uniform would give him immunity from search.
In this probably he was right, but he had overdone it.

I found the Serbs and the Czechs to be the best people over passports
in Central Europe. In Western Europe Belgium is most enlightened,
having practically abolished the visa. France is striving to follow
Belgium's lead. England in this matter, as in the matter of her
charges for postage, telephones, and railway fares, seems to have
completely lost that practical common sense which in the past has
distinguished her from other nations. She charges foreigners heavily,
keeps them waiting, and treats them impolitely. From Americans, for
instance, there is a chorus of complaint on the ground of incivility.
Not that Americans shine in this matter of passports for their own
country. America sets Europe an unenlightened example of red-tape and
venality.

What then, is the game in Europe? Why do free men and women spend
golden forenoons in stuffy rooms, to fill in forms, to be brow-beaten
by police and porters and clerks, treated like criminals or paupers, or
unemployed come for an allowance? Perhaps they are paid for it? No,
they actually have to pay, and pay heavily, suffering