orpses, and only once did his comic
spirit succeed.

One prisoner sunk down in a comatose condition in his chair, as
though his last drop of strength and life had oozed away. Now de
Burgher was one of those who can resist anything but temptation.
He stole over and tied the man's legs to his chair. Then he got a
German soldier to tap the hapless victim on the shoulder. Roused
from his stupor to see the soldier standing over him like a
messenger of doom, the poor fellow turned ashen pale. He sprang
to his feet, but the chair bound to his legs tripped him up and he
fell sprawling on the floor. He apparently regarded the chair as
some sort of German infernal machine clutching him, and he lay
there wrestling with his inanimate antagonist as though it were a
demon. As soon as the victim understood the joke he joined in the
burst of merriment that ran round the room; but it was of short
duration. The gloom got us again, despite all that de Burgher could
do, and finally he succumbed to the prevailing atmosphere and
gave us up as a bad job.

He was a diminutive fellow, battered and rather the worse for wear.
Ever shall I think of him not only as the happy-souled, but as the
great-souled. My introduction into the room was at the point of a
steel bayonet. With him, that served me far better than any gilt-
edged introduction of high estate. He didn't know what crime was
charged against, me, but he felt that it must have been a sacrifice
for Belgium's sake. The fact that I was persona non grata to the
Germans was a lien upon his sympathy, and gave me high rank
with him at once. He instinctively divined my feelings of fear and
loneliness, and straightway set out to make me his ward, his
comrade, and his master.

Never shall I forget how, during that long night in prison, he
crawled over and around the recumbent forms to where I lay upon
the floor courting sleep in vain. I was frightened by this maneuver,
but he smiled and motioned me to silence. Reaching up beneath
my blanket, he unlaced one shoe and then the other. At first I
really thought that he was going to steal them, but the reaction
from the day had set in and I was too tired and paralyzed to make
any protest. Laying the shoes one side, he remarked, "That will
ease your feet." Then stripping off his coat and rolling it into a
bundle, he placed it as a pillow beneath my head.

A great, big hulking American, treated tenderly by this little Belgian,
how could I keep the t