r faces and
their limbs as being of peasant blood or of the petty artisan type; but
here and there, along with the butcher and the baker and the candlestick
maker, passed one of a slenderer build, usually spectacled and wearing,
even in this employment, the unmistakable look of the cultured,
scholarly man.

And every other man, regardless of his breed, held a cheap cigar between
his front teeth; but the wagon drivers and many of the cavalrymen smoked
pipes--the long-stemmed, china-bowled pipe, which the German loves. The
column moved beneath a smoke-wreath of its own making.

The thing, however, which struck one most forcibly was the absolute
completeness, the perfect uniformity, of the whole scheme. Any man's
equipment was identically like any other man's equipment. Every
drinking cup dangled behind its owner's spine-tip at precisely the same
angle; every strap and every buckle matched. These Germans had been run
through a mold and they had all come out soldiers. And, barring a few
general officers, they were all young men--men yet on the sunny side of
thirty. Later we were to see plenty of older men--reserves and
Landwehr--but this was the pick of the western line that passed through
Louvain, the chosen product of the active wing of the service.

Out of the narrow streets the marchers issued; and as they reached the
broader space before the town hall each company would raise a song,
beating with its heavy boots on the paving stones to mark the time.
Presently we detected a mutter of resentment rising from the troops; and
seeking the cause of this we discerned that some of them had caught
sight of a big Belgian flag which whipped in the breeze from the top of
the Church of Saint Pierre. However, the flag stayed where it had been
put during the three days we remained in Louvain. Seemingly the German
commander did not greatly care whose flag flew on the church tower
overhead so long as he held dominion of the earth below and the dwellers
thereof.

Well, we watched the gray ear-wig wriggling away to the westward until
we were surfeited, and then we set about finding a place where we might
rest our dizzy heads. We could not get near the principal hotels. These
already were filled with high officers and ringed about with sentries;
but half a mile away, on the plaza fronting the main railroad station,
we finally secured accommodations--such as they were--at a small fourth-
rate hotel.

It called itself by a go