w of him I judged that the military governor of Brussels,
Major Bayer, was not only a diplomat but a kindly and an engaging
gentleman. Certainly he was wrestling most manfully, and I thought
tactfully, with a difficult and a dangerous situation. For one thing,
he was keeping his soldiers out of sight as much as possible without
relaxing his grip on the community. He did this, he said, to reduce the
chances of friction between his men and the people; for friction might
mean a spark and a spark might mean a conflagration, and that would mean
another and greater Louvain. We could easily understand that small
things might readily grow into great and serious troubles. Even the
most docile-minded man would be apt to resent in the wearer of a hated
uniform what he might excuse as over-officiousness or love of petty
authority were the offender a policeman of his own nationality.
Brooding over their own misfortunes had worn the nerves of these
captives to the very quick.

In any event, be the outcome of this war what it may, I do not believe
the Belgians can ever be molded, either by kindness or by sternness,
into a tractable vassal race. German civilization I concede to be a
magnificent thing--for a German; but it seems to press on an alien neck
as a galling yoke. Belgium under Berlin rule would be, I am sure,
Alsace and Lorraine all over again on a larger scale, and an unhappier
one. She would never, in my humble opinion, be a star in the Prussian
constellation, but always a raw sore in the Prussian side.

In Major Bayer's office I saw the major stamp an order that turned over
to the acting burgomaster ten thousand bags of flour for distribution
among the more needy citizens. We were encouraged to believe that this
was by way of a free gift from the German Government. It may have been
made without payment or promise of payment. In regard to that I cannot
say positively; but this was the inference we drew from the statements
of the German officers who took part in the proceeding. As for the
acting burgomaster, he stood through the scene silent and inscrutable,
saying nothing at all. Possibly he did not understand; the
conversation--or that part of it which concerned us--was carried on
exclusively in English. His face, as he bowed to accept the certified
warrant for the flour, gave us no hint of his mental processes.

Major Bayer claimed a professional kinship with those of us who were
newspaper men, as he was the