ailway ticket for a day's outing
without being cross-examined as to my purpose, my father, my uncles
and other relatives. The officials in Vain assured me that there was
nothing to see in the place I wished to visit. I played the card
which had succeeded with Militchevitch and asked if it were
dangerous. I could not enter a village without being at once asked
by the local policeman for my passport. Blankly ignorant of what was
behind these proceedings I steadily pursued my way, smiling at all
questions and supplying at demand long biographies of various
members of my family. No; my father had not been in the diplomatic
service, nor my uncles, nor brothers, nor cousins. No; none of them
were officers.

"I have come to see Serbia," said I, in return to the enquiry of a
police officer. "But what do you see?" he asked, gazing wildly
round. "I see nothing!"

Every official I think in every village, saw my sketch book,
demanded an explanation of why I had selected such things as wells,
gravestones, carts and cottages to draw, and remained mystified. For
the common objects of Serbia were of no interest to them. I merely
looked on all these vagaries as so many peculiar and silly Serbian
customs--wondered what the Serbs would do if a hundred or so
tourists appeared, for then there would not be enough police to go
round--and did not allow myself to be ruffled even when three times
in one day I had to show my passport to individuals who pounced down
on me in the street.

When I arrived at the' least bad hotel in Nish the hotelier said he
did not wish to be mixed up in the affair; gave me the worst room in
the house and told me I had better leave by the first train next
morning. I said I was going to stay and did. And explored Nish
conscious of "guardian angels" at my heels.

But it was here that I realized that there was something sinister in
the background, for so suspicious were the hotel people that when,
for two days I was seriously unwell, not one of them would come in
answer to my bell but an old woman, who flatly refused to bring me
anything and never turned up again. I lived on Brand's beef lozenges
till I was well enough on the evening of the second day to crawl
downstairs and bribe a waiter to fetch me some milk. Once recovered
I went to Pirot by rail in spite of pressing requests that I would
return to Belgrade. I wanted to see the Pirot carpet factories, but
of course no one believed this. They all imagined, as I